Portals
by Barely Meeting Expectations
Summary: When Mordecai & Rigby once again manage to mess something up they open a vortex to the human world, clashing the lives of Kairo and Benson. Humor, happiness, sadness, the grotesque, and all of the above found here. Chap 10 up, 11 pending. Benson X OC
1. No Mercy

_I knew I should've worn my other coat, _the gumball machine thought to himself as he trudged his way through the melted sludge on the sidewalk. The last few glimpses of sun managed to peek their way from between the greedy storm clouds, casting a shadow over the shivering figure making its way toward the city park. Eventually the clouds had had enough of being crowded by the sunlight, so it smeared over the brightness and dimmed the bothersome glow, as well as the atmosphere. The gray continued to consume the sky and eat away at the last precious reminders of Autumn. Then, to the gumball machine's demise, it started to rain. It was gentle at first, then it grew aggressive, and it pelted the gumball machine's dome with glee. The machine cursed as one struck his eyeball, and then cursed again when he slipped on a small section of ice and his gumballs spilt out of his dispenser. The loud cackling sound the thunder had made was meant to be laughter at his clumsiness and how he desperately searched in the puddles for his remaining pieces of candy. For both the storm clouds and the gumball machine, it was confirmed: Winter had arrived.

Benson hated winter. There wasn't one specific reason why he disliked it. There were countless reasons why it was such a troublesome season. He grumbled childishly as he picked himself up from the ground and attempted to dry the mud and rainwater off of him with a soaking wet jacket. Then he noticed that the jacket was wetter than him, so he cursed once more and flung it over his shoulder, not really caring how the cold water soaked his arm and ran down his back. The cons outnumbered the pros when it came to winter, and Benson wished that the springtime would finally come out of hiding to rid him of the cold snow and the bitter cold. Why did no one understand him when he told them that he couldn't stand winter, or snow for that matter? How could someone possibly love to roll around in the freezing embrace of the snow, or like to build snowmen with their bare hands? Would no one understand this concept? Why was winter even a season anyway? Perhaps it was just because the underappreciated seasons such as autumn had grown lonely and hardened itself, and wanted everyone around it to feel its wrath. Well, if this was the case, it was succeeding. Benson couldn't remember the last time that we was dry, let alone warm. He thought about this as he walked through the gates of the local park, where he was expected half an hour ago.

But it wasn't his fault he was so late. His car refused to cooperate in cold weather, another reason why winter wasn't one of his favorites. He was planning to stop by the Coffee Shop on his way, to at least warm his insides with a warm mug of Double Mint Mocha Delight; but alas, nothing he ever planned to do followed through. Something would always be in his way, a blockade that would never refuse to move, no matter how hard he tried to find a way around it. Suddenly, a wave of pain went up his foot, causing him to interrupt his self-pitiful thoughts and fall backwards. He fell right back into a puddle and sank deep into the mud. He just lied there for a moment, secretly wishing that the mall would at least carry boots his size, before wriggling his way out of the clingy rainwater and pulling his injured foot up to his face. A sharp piece of glass was imbedded into the arch his foot, and thick blood was slowly oozing down his ankle. Benson sighed deeply and clenched his fists. He hated how the store didn't bother to make at least sneakers that were his size. He also hated how Mordecai, having feet even bigger than his, managed to wear those tiny cleats when he played soccer with Rigby. Angrily, he squeezed the piece of glass between his forefinger and his thumb and yanked the glass out of his foot. Benson bit his bottom lip fiercely to keep from shouting in pain, and was grateful when the throbbing pain greatly declined. He dropped bloody shard of glass, which sank into the puddle behind him, then he cupped his hand and poured the rainwater over the cut. It stung for a second or two, then it gradually numbed as the cold seeped into it and the mud washed out. Benson was satisfied when the bleeding stopped and the pulsation of the deep cut wasn't as painful. He pulled himself up from the ground carefully, and proceeded to walk on the cut open foot. It wasn't at all pleasant, but the sooner he arrived at the park house, the sooner he could treat it and determine whether or not it was a serious matter. He limped in the direction of the house, completely forgetting about the jacket that was left soaking in the puddle at the entrance of the park.

"Why are you arriving late, Beancan? I expected you nearly forty-five minutes ago!" Mr. Maellard's voice boomed through the house. It didn't necessarily affect Mordecai and Rigby, who were too preoccupied with their video game to be paying attention to their boss being yelled at. Benson regretted walking to the park instead of taking the bus, for if he knew that Mr. Maellard would show up unexpectedly to give an early Christmas present to his son, then he would've gotten there early. For now though, Benson had to conceal his anger and disappointment by biting on his lower lip while sitting at the kitchen table across from his boss. Enduring meeting with his boss was almost just like trying to pull out glass from flesh, with the exception that the glass was driven into your bone and the more you pulled at it the more pain you were in. Benson rubbed his cold hands together vigorously as he responded. "I-I-my car wasn't-it, broke down, sir. I had to walk here." The grumpy old lollipop straightened out his jacket and grunted. "You walked all the way here without a jacket or footwear?" Benson lightly shrugged. "Um, no sir. I supposed that the weather would be nicer. I brought a coat, but-"

As if on queue, the door opened and a bulking yeti entered the kitchen wearing a black jacket and jeans. A sopping wet blue coat was in his arms. "Benson, this your jacket?" he asked the gumball machine in a low gravelly voice. Benson nodded and rubbed the back of his head. "I sort of forgot about it." he admitted to Mr. Maellard, who was boring his eyes through the managers' dome. Skips cut in before the lollipop man could scold him for being such an intolerant employee. "How's your foot?" Benson looked at him quizzically. "My-how did you know I-?"

"I found a bloody piece of glass in the puddle your coat was in. It's a long shard, so that cut of yours must be pretty deep. You mind if I take a look?" Benson shook his head as Skips sat in the chair next to him. He carefully lifted his foot and inspected it while Mr. Maellard resumed his pep talk. "Well, your tardiness will be excused this once, only because you were seemingly injured on the way here. But I won't allow it again, you understand, Beanteen?" Benson nodded gratefully. "Y-yes sir!" Mr. Maellard, after scanning the managers' face once more, nodded in approval and scooped up a packet of paperwork from the table.

"Now then, there's a lot to discuss about the park's scenery matters. Enhancing the landscape with plants and flowers for season's greetings should be enough for this years' alterations to the park. A garden would be quite a nice change for the setting, as well as planting some new trees. And with the amount of work that is due before spring, I strongly suggest that you hire another worker, perhaps one that has experience with gardens or horticulture. This should-"

"Mr. Maellard sir?" Skips interrupted the old man's speech. Mr. Maellard took a strong liking to Skips when he applied for the job, so he wouldn't dare show rudeness to him for interrupting, as he definitely would've done if it were Benson. "Yes, Skips?" "Benson needs to be taken to the hospital, this cut is too large to be treated with a meager first aid kit." Benson, who was struck with fear when Skips said the word 'hospital' immediately took his foot from Skips and examined the cut. It was worse than it looked when he first received it. It was nearly four inches long, and it was starting to bleed once more. "It can't be that bad," Benson squeaked, desperately trying to change his friends' mind. But Skips merely shook his head and turned back to Mr. Maellard. "If you ever want it to get better Benson, it has to have stitches, and it has to be treated as soon as possible." Mr. Maellard hopped from his chair and looked at Benson's foot questioningly. He nodded. "Yes, Skips, it appears you are right. This cut is very serious. How did you get this cut, Bensop?" he asked the gumball machine, who was still anxiously squeezing his ankle in an effort to calm down.

"I stepped on it, and it got stuck in there, so I pulled it out. But it's not that bad!" he claimed. There was another thing he couldn't stand. _Hospitals. _His last experience at the hospital was the worst, when he had to get his hand stitched up when he tripped and fell down his apartment stairs and a piece of glass from a beer bottle in the alleyway ripped it clean open. He was glad that he was the only one that knew about it, and that the scar from the cut wasn't as visible as it was months ago. The wise yeti sighed.

"That's why the cut is so long Benson. You pulled it out at a wrong angle, so it cut more of it open than it would've if it were taken out at the right angle. You should've just left it alone."

"But then how would I have been able to walk all the way to the house in order to get it pulled out? Besides, I was freezing."

"You don't know much about First Aid, do you?"

"I know enough."

Mr. Maellard whacked Benson on his glass dome with his cane. "Hush boy! I'm sure Skips knows what he's doing. Since you will have to get stitches, you are not to work for the next couple of weeks until you are well enough to work again. From now on, I am making it a requirement that every park worker, gumball machine or mammal nonetheless, is to wear proper attire while working or there will be consequences! Understood!"

"Y-yes sir!" Benson stammered nimbly.

"Very good now. Skips, have you any idea how long the surgery should take?" Skips shrugged. "Sir, all I know is that Benson will have to use crutches if he wants to get around at all for the next month or so." Benson groaned, only to be whacked in the head again by his boss. "Therefore, you're not allowed to be going anywhere when you get back from the hospital. You are to stay on park grounds until your foot is healed. There's no way you'll be able to take care of yourself in such a condition."

"But-but sir," Benson started to say, before being bonked on the head for the third time in a row. "I'll try to find someone who can watch after you for the time being. Well, what are you waiting for? You should get going if this wound must be treated as soon as possible!" Before Benson could tell Mr. Maellard that the cut shouldn't interfere with his getting back to his apartment, Skips scooped him up as if he were a rag doll and skipped out the door. _Oh, this is going to be fun, _Benson thought to himself. Rigby, hearing all of the ruckus that resulted in him losing the game, peeked over the couch in curiosity and saw the door slam. He also noted a puddle of blood on the floor. "Um, hey, Mr. Maellard sir?" he said. The lollipop man turned around. "W-what happened just now?"

"It's nothing, my son. Your boss simply has sustained an injury as a result of trying to walk to the park in the winter months. May this serve as a lesson to you both," he pointed his finger at Rigby and Mordecai, who had heard Mr. Maellard approach and paused his game to pay attention. "Winter is not one to befriend. It is cruel, and if it really wanted to, it would show _no mercy_." At that, Mr. Maellard trotted up the stairs gaily, flailing his top hat behind him as a farewell to the lazy mammals sitting upon the couch staring at him in confusion.

"Dude…did you hear that?" the blue jay said to the raccoon before they continued their videogame. "I didn't get any of that funky poetry." Mordecai face palmed himself. "No dude. Because of Benson getting hurt, that old guy is gonna make us wear clothes. _Human _clothes." "WHAT?" Rigby shouted, standing up on the couch and flinging the controller up in the air.

"He can't make us do that."

"Yes he can Rigby."

"How? Is he gonna walk in on us and try putting it on us himself?"

"Dude, Mr. Maellard is Benson's boss, who is our boss. If we don't listen to him, we might as well tell Benson that we want to quit."

"But we don't!"

"Exactly. So we have to wear clothes. End of story."

Rigby slumped down into the scruffy couch somberly, the controller sliding from his numb fingers. "Did he say what we have to wear? Like, just a shirt or something?" Mordecai shrugged as he handed Rigby his controller and started the game. "I don't know dude. I think he said _proper attire_." Mordecai replied as he quickly tapped the buttons on the controller with ease. Rigby struggled and fumbled with his controller as he tried to multitask, play the videogame and hold up a conversation at the same time. "Does that mean we have to wear everything? Like the socks, and the shoes, and the…underwear?" Mordecai chuckled. "Dude, I think we should start wearing clothes anyway. Isn't it a little odd that we walk around without any pants, let alone underpants?" At this comment, Rigby looked at his pelvic area curiously, only to look back at the screen and realize that he lost again. "Hey, not fair!" he shouted. "I know dude. Life's not fair. But we'll have to live with doing laundry I guess." "What?" Rigby questioned him, tugging on the controller and unplugging the entire game console.

"Dude! Look what you did!" Mordecai boomed. He stood up and plugged in the back of the game console. "I sleep in dirty laundry, man! Why don't we just pay someone to do our laundry for us?" Mordecai thought about his friends' comment for a second, stopping what he was doing, before turning the console off and putting his controller away. "Dude, I don't think we'll have to pay someone to do it for us. Mr. Maellard is finding someone to take care of Benson while his injury is getting better, so we'll just trick _him _into doing our laundry."

"Dude…that can actually work! Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because, Rigby, I'm smarter than you. And you're sort of stupid."

"Hey!"

"Just kidding bro. C'mon, let's drive the cart over to the hospital to see how Benson's coping."

The two mammals walked around the small puddle of blood in the kitchen and exited the back door, heading for the garage to get the golf cart to drive to their boss. Neither of them realized that the television screen tore open and revealed a gaping grey vortex to the human world.


	2. Seeing Things

Kairo didn't understand why having to attend school was mandatory. After all, the only reason why half of the girls that go to her school and decide not to drop out is because they like all of the attention they receive from the guys. That's what going to school was always about, wasn't it? Kairo thought as she walked from school on a normal Friday evening, nervously clutching a sketchbook. Everything around her seemed gloomy, and she hated having to lift her hand up to block the dim sun from piercing her blue gray eyes. She hated summer. There wasn't a simpler way to put it. The heat was sweltering in the desert, and to make matters worse, her house was three miles from the high school. She would much rather have to trudge through endless piles of powder and snow than have to lug an enormous backpack all the way to her foster parent's house. She would choose a blizzard than a heat wave any day, no matter what she happened to be wearing.

She fumbled clumsily for her black hood behind her backpack and yanked it over her black mat of knotted hair in an effort to conceal her face from the hot rays of the sun. She hadn't even walked ten steps towards her home before she felt something wet slam into her back. Jumping nearly five feet in the air, the sketchbook dropped from her scrawny arms, and the pages flipped open on the sand. Cats. All she was good at drawing was cats. Kittens, tabbies, fat cats, bald cats, wild cats; you name it. That was all she was capable of. Before her attackers could shoot another water balloon in her direction, Kairo scooped up her book and burst down the dirt road. "Hey, where're you going?" said a nasally female voice of one of the preps. At first, Kairo had the urge to stop in her tracks and run back to pop her in the mouth. But then she would end up in the principal's office once again for attempting to _instigate a fight, _as she'd been accused of doing in the passed for self-defense. So she kept on running, craving the feeling of the wind brushing up against her face. She could've ran forever in the same direction without running out of breath, knowing where to step so she wouldn't slip on the fine sand of the desert trail.

Her foster family was spoiled for the most part. They lived in a three-story house located in the middle of the barren desert, quite far from the small town where she attended school. By the time she arrived at the house, she was pumped, wanting to run like the wind in a marathon nonstop. Kairo stopped in front of the ornate door to her foster family's living room. She knew what was in store. Amelia, her snobby stepsister, was probably home from her private school and most likely had a bunch of friends over. Considering the fact that she was able to hear pop music blaring through the sealed windows, this was clearly the case. Kairo sighed and nudged open the door quietly. She was hoping not to be caught by her sister and to sneak off into her room in the attic to draw some more cats, and maybe even try to draw a self portrait of herself. But alas, right before she reached the stairs, a set of strong arms wound themselves around her and embraced her in a hug.

"Oh, goody! Mah step sissie's home!" said the eighteen year old Amelia, lifting her up into the air and flailing her as if she were a teddy bear. "Wha-? Put me down Amelia! I've got homework!" Kairo tried to lie, only to be set down and have her cheeks squished by sharp manicured fingers. "Oh, the little poochie-poo has homework? What a shame, we was gonna have some funsies!" Kairo took one look at her older sister's face and realized that she was drunk again, the fourth time this month that she was drinking without Mother or Father knowing. Amelia grabbed her sister's wrist and tugged her to the kitchen halfheartedly, stumbling over her own two feet as she did so. She led her into the kitchen and held Kairo's hand above her head as if the was the winner of a wrestling match. "I got ha! Mah lill sissy is in da house!" There were seven other teenagers a little older than Kairo, most of which were guys. Treating her like a baby, Amelia lifted her little sister up and set her in one of the chairs at the table, scooting one over and sitting next to her. "Are you ready to get fun?"

_Get fun? What's wrong with you? _Kairo wished she could say, but she didn't really know what to do. In fact, she was scared. There were a bunch of drunken teenagers in the kitchen, her cruel sister being one of them, and nowhere to escape to. The situation could lead anywhere, and everybody else would be able to forget about it; everyone except Kairo, who would remember everything. Amelia pulled two beers from the icebox beside her and whooped loudly. She then placed a bottle in the center of the table, and two of the teenagers fought over it until one finally yanked it from the other's grasp, popping it open and sucking it down greedily. Amelia did the same with hers, opening it and chugging half of it down in moments. _Gosh_, Kairo thought, _you're stupid. _Amelia slammed the bottle down on the table and laughed hysterically. How many bottles had she had in the past few hours she'd been here? Four? Five?

Kairo suppressed her shivers and squeezed her sketchbook closer to her. She was in the midst of thinking whether or not to tell Mother about all this when she sensed Amelia looking at her. When she turned her attention to her older sister, she confirmed that she was being stared at by everyone. Her stomach lurched inside of her. Something bad was going to happen, she could feel it. The way Amelia looked at her sent shivers down her spine. It was an indescribable look, one that was meant to calm you down and show affection, only to abruptly change and make you feel nothing but fear. Fear was a funny thing, and even though Kairo had feared her sister many times before, she'd grown used to being glared at with such loathe and love at the same time. It was becoming an impulse to look away and cross your fingers that whatever happened next wasn't going to scar you for life.

Amelia's hateful expression turned into the same, drunken smile as it was before. "I love you sissy!" She said in the softest voice she could muster. At first, Kairo believed her. She was touched for a second. But she had let her guard down, for after that split second of understanding, she found herself sprawled out on the floor with a welt throbbing on her cheekbone. There was silence at first, before the entire room erupted with laughter and cheering at Amelia's sudden punch at her sister. Before Kairo could assemble enough energy to get herself up from the ground, she was rolled over onto her back with sharp stilettos. "I love you _so much, _sissy!" said Amelia as she grabbed her bottle off of the table and pressed it against Kairo's lips. Kairo coughed and gagged at the putrid flavor of the alcohol and desperately tried to whack the bottle away, only to find it jammed into her mouth once again.

"Chug! Chug! Chug!" chanted Amelia's friends, encouraging her to keep forcing her little sister to drink the beer. Once the bottle was empty, Amelia chucked it against the wall forcefully. It produced an echoing shattering sound throughout the house, and Amelia laughed to herself as she allowed her shaking little sister to upstairs into the attic. "Where're ya goin'?" She asked, stomping her stilettos on the floor to make Kairo think that she was chasing her. She adored seeing her foster sister's fear written all over her face. It gave her a sense of satisfaction. "We haven't even started the fun yet!" Kairo tripped over her own shaking feet countless times trying to escape her sister. The staircase, which previously had around fifteen steps, seemed to grow twice as longer, going on forever. The walls seemed so much thinner, closing in on her, suffocating her. _Don't stop, don't stop, _she thought, trying to reassure herself that she'll make it to the top. She heard the stomping of her sisters feet echoing behind her. "Come back! I looove you sissy!" Kairo couldn't believe her luck when she finally slipped through the attic door and lock it shut behind her.

There was nothing but sobbing coming from the attic room for the next few hours. Kairo couldn't believe that Amelia had taken things so far. But who could she tell? There was no way that Mother would believe her, for Amelia always had a story in mind when she got home from work. What would it be this time? "Oh mother, it was horrible! She just walked in on us when we were studying our biology and charged at me! I had to defend myself!" Then of course, when Kairo would fall asleep that night, Amelia would sneak in and hide all of the empty bottles in her room, only to reveal them later and tell her mother "Look! She has been intoxicating herself all those times she tried attacking me! Oh, mother, she's such a cruel person! Please take her back to the orphanage! Please!"

_Back to the orphanage._

_The orphanage._

She would much rather be there, living with dozens of other motherless and fatherless children, than put up with Amelia any longer. She'd rather be a homeless girl, living off of the dumpsters in the alleyways of the small town than have to be held prisoner and used as amusement here. She finally was able to dry her tears, only to have some more flood out when she realized that she'd left her sketchbook downstairs. Why bother searching for it or going back to get it? It was long gone by now, Amelia probably burned it in the fireplace or shoved it down the garbage disposal as she did with all of the other possessions she left lying around. Why did nobody ever give her a chance? She didn't she why she couldn't be treated like any other child, raised with a caring family, like it used to be before the fire…

_The fire…_

No. No! I'll not blame myself for that again! Kairo thought as she raised her head from the pathetic excuse for a bed and eased her way towards the window. She rested her head against the cool glass, staring down on the teenagers as they all said farewell to Amelia and started to head home. Then she spotted a black Excursion making its way toward the house. She closed her eyes. All she wanted, more than anything in the world, was love. It didn't matter who it was, it didn't matter if they were mass murderers or escaped criminals. If they loved her, then she would become one too. She had used to put all of her love in a teddy bear, only to find it had been completely destroyed by the kids at the orphanage out of jealously. She had used to put all of her love into a black bandana that she used to wear all of the time, only to find it plucked off of her head and flushed down the toilet by Amelia. She had used to put all her love into a sketchbook in the form of cats. That was gone as well.

And out of all of these objects that she loved so dearly, none of them had loved her back. She felt a strange sensation inside of her, a longing. It grew desperate, and she would give anything for it to stop. Anything…

A loud bang from the far side of the attic startled her out of her thoughts. Kairo scooted against the wall as her eyes scanned what could've made the noise. The attic that her careless foster parents wasn't as big as a room, and if all of the dusty furniture and boxes with white blankets over them had been removed, then it probably would've suited Kairo just fine. _Something could've fallen over, _she thought to herself, easing nearer to the piles of junk. Nothing was out of place or fallen over. It had to be under the blanket. Kairo rubbed her hands together nervously. She hated these sort of situations, where only _you _can do something about it, and if you didn't do it, it haunted you one way or another. Kairo raised her pale hand and gently pinched the white sheet covering all of the furniture. Then, aggressively, she yanked it off.

Dust consumed the room and filled her lungs. Kairo had a quick coughing spasm and rushed back to open the window and took a deep breath of fresh air. She made her way back to the furniture and her face lit up. Had she known that this is what she'd find in her room, she would've raided through it long before. There were old scruffy couches, fancy fur coats and dresses, an old box TV, a bear rug…

It wasn't long before Kairo noticed the huge rip in the TV screen. It wasn't necessarily a rip, more like a maelstrom of gray colors and blue colors merged together. It looked as if it were a tunnel that was going through the TV, a giant cyclone that whirled and twisted in different directions before finally coming to an abrupt halt. Kairo curiously peeked in. It looked very interesting. And it looked like it could've led someplace else. Kairo cautiously eased her hand toward the vortex…

"KAIRO! Get down her right this second!" The booming voice of Mother made Kairo jump and flip towards the door. She couldn't go through the tunnel, or whatever it was. Not now. They would probably follow her and take her back. Kairo nimbly flung the sheet back over the furniture cluttered on the corner of the attic and unlocked the door. "C-coming, Mother!" she shouted down to her foster relatives as she gradually made her way downstairs. _This, _she thought to herself, _is gonna be fun…_


	3. Side Effects

"Aww, come on! It's not _that _bad,"

Rigby replied to Bensons' groan as the three of them waltzed into the park house. Surprisingly, the visit to the hospital wasn't as bad as Benson thought it would be. The only regret that he had was the needle piercing through his foot and the numbing feeling that went up his entire leg when they were about to perform the surgery. He couldn't help but groan, however, when Mordecai told him that Skips still had to clear out the guest room, so he had to bunk with his two employees for the night.

"Besides," Mordecai added with an optimistic tone.

"It's only for tonight until Skips can move all of those boxes out of the guest room." Benson sighed deeply. He didn't want to have to put up with these two immature employees for much longer. The work hours were more than enough to begin with. Rigby scampered up the stairs on all fours with Mordecai stomping up behind him, leaving their gumball machine boss at the door leaning on two crutches. He rolled his eyes at their eagerness of their boss having to bunk with them for the night, and finally drew the crutches under his arms and clutched them fiercely as he headed toward the staircase. He stopped at the first stair and gritted his teeth in anger. "Goddamn it," he cursed under his breath aggressively.

Mordecai came to a halt at the entrance of their bedroom and flipped around to see his boss still standing at the stairway. "Can you make it up dude?" he asked. Benson looked up to him with a face that was flushing red, out of embarrassment and anger at the same time. "You know," he said behind clenched teeth. "I think I'm gonna sleep on the _couch_." the blue jay shrugged and walked toward the closet to take out some blankets and a pillow. Benson hopped into the living room with the bothersome crutches and withdrew them from under his arms. He plopped down on the couch tiredly, careful not to hit his stitched up foot against the foot of the table in front of him. He flung his bulbous head back onto the cushion and closed his eyes. He couldn't describe how tired he was, of everything going on in his life all at once. "Are you feeling okay dude?" he heard Mordecai's voice beside him. Benson slowly opened his eyes and saw that Mordecai had already gotten the blankets and had sat next to him on the sofa. He tried to nod, but his head had started to ache once more, so he hunched over onto his knees and rested it on his hands. "Yeah, fine," he replied groggily. He didn't feel like getting into a big discussion right now.

"Well, um…sorry what happened with your, err, foot," Mordecai tried to say nonchalantly, only to have it come out sounding awkward. He wasn't used to having conversations with Benson. It didn't settle comfortably with him; yet in a way, he felt like the more he tried, the easier it would be to talk to him. Benson shrugged and chuckled to himself. "What?" Mordecai asked.

"What-did that sound funny?" Benson peeked over at his mumbling employee. He wasn't like Muscleman, who cracked jokes about his mom every second of every day. And he wasn't anything like Rigby, who was always ecstatic and very forward with his opinions and feelings. He seemed a little more mature than the rest of his coworkers, except Skips of course, and he seemed like a pretty nice person overall. "It's nothing, Mordecai." He said.

Mordecai leaned back into the couch and watched his boss intently as he inspected his newly treated foot. Benson gently ran his finger over each of the thin stitches imbedded in his skin.

"Well," Benson said, snapping Mordecai out of his thoughts. "It's just another problem to deal with, I guess." Benson rested his foot gently back down onto the carpet and crossed his arms. "At least I didn't fall flat on my face, you know?" Benson chuckled softly at himself, and Mordecai weakly chuckled alongside him, feeling awkward as ever. Mordecai looked back at Benson, who looked as if he'd stayed up all night playing Dig Champs with no coffee whatsoever.

"Dude, you look really tired." Mordecai stated simply as Benson slowly turned toward him. "Yeah," he replied. "Side effects of the drugs, I guess."

"Maybe you should get some sleep."

"I would, but I still got tons of paperwork to…finish…"

"Dude, just sleep for now and do it in the morning."

"But…I've got to…"

Benson rubbed his face with his hands roughly in an effort to keep him awake, only to feel a feathered hand on his shoulder. "Dude, seriously. Take a break and get some rest, or you'll regret it in the morning."

"Okay, okay. I'll…alright, you go hit the hay too, I guess." Mordecai didn't need to be told twice. He stood up and yawned loudly. "With pleasure." Mordecai walked out of the room and stomped back up the stairs. Benson flung the pillow on top of the armrest of the sofa and lied down, craving the feeling of relaxation he got when he allowed his tired body to rest on the plush cushions of the couch. He was about to close his eyes when something moving on the Television screen caught his attention. He shot them open with anticipation and lifted his head to look toward the Television screen. There was a gaping grey/black hole swirling in the center of the TV, almost like a vortex.

_Gee, _Benson thought angrily, _I wonder who could have done that? _Before he could scream Mordecai and Rigby's names at the top of his lungs he stopped himself and thought about what he was seeing. A swirling whirlpool of black and grey upon a pitch-black TV screen late at night, in the dark, right after being injected with drugs and coming back from surgery from one of the most creepy places in the world. It could've been his imagination, or just a side effect from the drugs he was given. He sighed and dropped his head back onto the pillow, still watching the swirling thing in the TV. Yes, it was probably just the stupid drugs. He closed his eyes and shook his head, reminding himself to check if it was still there in the morning before he left to go purchase clothes from the mall...

X

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"Why do you keep doing this, Kairo!" her foster-mom shouted at her from across the kitchen table. Her foster dad was still on that business trip, and Amelia was preoccupied concealing a sly grin by applying layers of hot pink lipstick and too much blush. Kairo slouched over the table as her mother continued yelling at her. "What is your problem with Amelia! Don't you see that she loves you and she's trying to connect with you!" Kairo looked back up at her foster-mom. God, how she hated this woman she was forced to call "_mother"._ Wearing a navy blue business shirt and tie with matching jewelry and makeup, her hair pulled into a tight pony tail in the back of her head, she looked like a woman who meant business. Sadly, to Kairo's demise, she did. The woman's voice was hostile, destroying the barrier that Kairo had spent so much time constructing to avoid everything from spilling out of her like a dam with a huge hole in it.

"Oh, mother, she isn't listening!" Amelia said with a nasally, innocent voice as she marveled over herself in the pink little mirror. "I don't know how much longer I can put up with being neglected and … misunderstood," she wiped away an invisible tear and fluttered her luscious eyelashes to make it look like her eyes were growing watery. Kairo hated how she played with her mom's emotions, distorting them to make her feel bad for her, thus giving her whatever she wanted in the end. Her mom noticed this quickly, and let out her anger towards the quivering orphan child sitting across the table. "You see what you're doing! You're doing nothing but inflicting damage on your sister! Do you want to see her fall into depression for not being loved by someone who she's trying to connect with?"

Who she's trying to connect with? _who she's trying to connect with? _Kairo's thoughts ravenously thrashed at her conscience, blinding her, desperately wanting to be released into the air. But where would that get her? Amelia would retort with a venomous lie again, she could probably frame her for murder if she wanted too. Not that it mattered. Even if her foster-mother did believe her, Amelia would merely beg for her to understand it was out of _depression _or whatever the hell, and if that didn't work, she would lie to her, fill her head with false claims and facts that would finally make her fall into whatever her poor little daughter wanted. Kairo bit her bottom lip until the distinctive taste of blood made her cease, and her mother kept pressing the matter.

"Don't you think that your sister deserves a chance to be accepted? What do you have against her anyway? Huh? Is it because you're jealous?"

Kairo couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand how this happened every time.

"Is it because you think I love her more than I love you?"

Something bad was going to happen, Kairo could feel it welling up inside of her, clenching at her stomach and hovering overhead like a storm cloud. The horrible feeling of anticipation and fear swept over her like a wave, drowning her final judgment.

"Is it because she's my actual daughter? And you're JEALOUS because your parents are GONE?"

That was it. That was what made her lose all control. That was the final straw. She snapped.

"JEALOUS?" She screamed at the top of her lungs, causing her mother to flinch and step backward. Kairo stood up, tipping the chair over as she did so. "IF ONLY MY PARENTS COULD SEE HOW HORRIBLE OF A FOSTER MOTHER YOU ARE! I'VE NO REASON TO BE JEALOUS OF AMELIA! She's nothing but a monster! If you knew what went on when you weren't around, you'd understand, but YOU'RE NOT! So how would _YOU _know?" And with those sharp words still piercing the very atmosphere of the dining room, Kairo flipped around and punched the kitchen wall so hard the thin skin on her knuckles tore open. She ran up the stairs, punching several more holes in the wall as she did so, before bursting through the door and slamming it as hard as she could, producing a deafening echo through the house.

Still enraged by her foster mother's words, locked the door and hit the wood of the door aggressively until she couldn't feel her hands. The words still lingered in the air of the attic, which grew heavy and hard to breathe in. _And you are jealous because your parents are gone?_ Kairo knew what Amelia was planning to do that night. She would sneak the attic key from her mother's bedroom and creep in to dump all of the empty beer bottles and sleeping pill bottles next to her bed, as she did every time there was evidence that needed to be rid of. Kairo yanked the sheet off of the furniture, ignoring the small amount of dust that helped itself into her lungs, and out of sheer rage she tore the paper-thin sheet in half. She dragged the remnants of the old furniture over and barricaded the attic door the best she could. But no matter how much crumbling old furniture she put in front of the door, she still felt like Amelia would get to her.

It felt like she was being played with; one moment you were safe, the next you're life was in danger. Back and forth, back and forth, before you finally tell yourself that nowhere will ever be safe. Kairo slugged the attic wall a few times more before finally allowing herself to crumple onto her bed and scream into the pillow, smearing her tears against the rough texture of the pillow sheet until her face was raw.

It wasn't until she woke up from a restless sleep did she realize how much her knuckles hurt. After a few minutes of inspection, she noted that they were bloody and sore, and it didn't surprise her much if she'd broken both of her hands. She doubted it, though. Kairo looked up at the ceiling with red, sore eyes. She didn't want to have to put up with this sick excuse of a life for much longer. She just wanted to be somewhere else- anywhere else! She would rather pick the orphanage and nearly starve there rather than be well-fed under the same roof as Amelia. Kairos' thoughts of self-pity lulled her into yet another restless nightmare, and Kairo completely forgot about the swirling vortex still dancing on the screen of the old television.


	4. Little Issues

By the time Benson had managed to ease his sore eyes open, Mordecai was already downstairs shoddily slurping down his third bowl of cereal. It wasn't necessarily his throbbing foot or his splitting headache that caused him to wake up; it was the unbelievably loud music blaring from Mordecai's huge headphones, which Benson could hear all the way from the kitchen. In fact, this was how he confirmed that it was Mordecai in the kitchen, considering the fact that whatever spare time he had from his obnoxious little raccoon friend and his tiresome work hours, he was most likely chilling on his bed listening to his music. Benson finally commanded himself to sit up, grab his annoying crutches, and hop his way into the kitchen. Sure enough, Mordecai was completely zoned, staring into his empty cereal bowl in the midst of coexisting within his booming music world. The park manager skipped over beside him, still cursing under his breath how the crutches were starting to tick him off.

"Mordecai," he said. The blue jay was unresponsive and continued to tap his foot against the tile floor and nod his head with the beat of the pop music. "Mordecai!" Benson said again, a little louder, in an effort to get his employees' attention. Still no response. After fiercely digging his teeth into his bottom lip out of annoyance, Benson sighed and grabbed the headphones, giving them a gentle tug and causing them to slide off Mordecai's head and rest on his shoulder. Mordecai froze before shaking his head slightly in confusion and slowly turning around.

"Oh. Hey dude. Feel a little better today?" Mordecai asked dispassionately as he turned his attention back to his uninteresting cereal bowl. Benson sat next to him and shrugged. "With the cut and all? A little bit. In general? No, not really." Mordecai giggled childishly at his humor, causing the both of them to laugh at this funny but true statement. Mordecai reached for his CD player and shut it off.

"Why could I hear your music from all the way from the living room?" Benson asked with a disapproving tone. Mordecai slipped the headphones off of his shoulders and set them on top of the player.

"They aren't _that_ loud."

"They are, trust me."

"Well, I was listening to a really good band."

"It better be an awesome band then."

Mordecai shrugged again and rested his head on his wings. "Nothing much, it's just a sad song that's been growing on me lately_. _Weird, though, the song's about a girl..."

"A _girl_, huh?" Benson added with a mischievous grin, glancing at Mordecai with raised eyebrows. Mordecai laughed and playfully nudged him with his elbow. "No dude, not like that, man. It's really a sad song. Maybe I'll show you the lyrics later. Actually, I think I can remember the first part, um… yeah, I don't think I can remember; I suck at remembering the words, and singing in general for that matter."

But Benson wasn't necessarily paying attention to his subtle self-scolding. He was too ensnared in his own memories that those few song lyrics withdrew, therefore he wasn't really listening to Mordecai as he was gesticulating and explaining how horrible he was at singing.

"And then everyone would, like, spontaneously combust, or something." Mordecai concluded his statement about how his singing would result in the apocalypse, flinging his hands up in the air and allowing them to fall down to his sides. "Huh," Benson said under his breath, staring at a small puddle of milk on the table in a trance. "What dude?" Mordecai asked. Benson blinked a few times before looking back at Mordecai. "Sounds depressing."

"Dude, if you think _that's _depressing, try listening to Brain Explosion. THAT'S depressing." Mordecai popped open the CD player and took the disc out, handing it to his boss. "This is just a shabby collection of some of _my _favorites. I suggest you listen to them and pick out a few of your own. Maybe you'll find one you like." Benson looked at the disc, and not seeing a specific reason why he should decline it, he took it from his employee. "Thanks."

"No prob. Whenever you want to hear somethin' new, just come to me, 'cuz I'm _ninja _when it comes to music. Hey, didn't that old Maellard guy say we have to go and get clothes today?" Being abruptly reminded of this incident immediately dragged Benson back down into his normal depression without any hesitations; thus, his sliver of satisfaction withered into dust, leaving nothing but a few remnants of the conversation they had about some sad song. Benson flung his head up into the air and moaned with aggravation in every ounce of his bellow. Mordecai chuckled. "Dude, you sound like Rigby."

"Zip it."

Out of nowhere, Rigby crawled up onto the kitchen table and plopped down right in the center of it. "What do I sound like?" He asked Mordecai with a curious expression. Benson sighed. "Get off of the dining table Rigby."

"Aw, what? But I look way short sitting in those tiny little chairs! And this table is comfy!"

Benson face-palmed before glaring at Rigby. "You're short to begin with, these chairs are bigger than YOU, and hard wood is not comfy; quit squatting on the table or your fired."

Rigby moaned just as Benson did not a minute earlier, causing Mordecai to laugh uncontrollably and get a death stare from his boss. "See? There it is again! I am so _ninja_," he boasted between chuckles. Rigby looked downright confused, and Benson shook his head at the bird's horrible humor, before allowing a smirk to protrude from his lips and accidentally give into the little game. "God, I hope not," Benson added from behind a sly sneer towards Rigby. "Hey!" Rigby retorted with a childlike pout face, crossing his arms and leaping off of the table onto the floor next to his friend. "So what are we supposed to do today? Dishes?" Rigby spat as he gave his employer a resentful face, sticking his tongue out as far as it would go. "Keep on making faces at me and you'll be on dish duty for the next month." Benson said plainly. He knew how much Rigby despised the job of doing the dishes every week. Immediately after hearing this, Rigby flipped around and resided to making goofy faces at the wall; after all, he didn't specify what not to make faces at. Mordecai thumped the back of Rigby's head with his spoon. "Oww!" Rigby whimpered as he rubbed the spot where Mordecai barely tapped him.

"Dude, today we go _clothes shopping, _remember?" Again, Rigby wailed his immature, high-pitched moan. "I haaaaaate clooooooothes." He whined. As they bickered back and forth about the matter, Benson looked at Rigby, then to Mordecai, and back at Rigby; all the while he was imagining them walking out of the mall wearing actual clothing. It certainly made Benson do a double-take, after noticing that Rigby would probably only fit into child clothes. Then he looked down at himself, noting how his red torso was almost the same size as Rigby's, and Benson frowned in dismay. _Great, _he thought to himself, _unless I never want to hear the end of having to wear kid clothes, I have to shrink all of mine to make them fit. Just what I need. _Benson shook his head and started towards the door. "C'mon guys, let's get this over with." Benson left the door open for them as he dragged himself toward the cart with loathing for his lollipop boss.

"Just a sec, dude!" Mordecai called through him through the open door, following Rigby into the living room. He and Rigby had agreed to returning a "defective" video game in order to get enough money to buy the next one. Of course, they would do this after scratching the disc's backside to make it no longer playable. "Why can't we just wait till we get our paycheck and then buy the third one dude?" Mordecai asked as Rigby walked towards the game console. "Because they're going to run out, man! Besides, the second one isn't even that good, and it was _defective_," he said slyly, opening the console and removing the disc. He was just about to vandalize it when he noticed something peculiar on the television screen that made him freeze in his tracks. Mordecai watched him as he stood paralyzed in fear. "Okay, dude. You got the disc. Let's go before Benson get's pissed at us!" Mordecai urged his friend. Rigby didn't budge. "Dude! Let's get going! Don't you want to-" he stopped speaking when he saw what Rigby was staring at.

A big crater inside the screen. No, not necessarily a crater, more like a hole, a dark colored spiral that looked like it went on forever. Rigby flipped around to face Mordecai. "Dude…What do we do!"

Mordecai shook his head and stepped towards it. "How did this even get here? Were you messing with that universal remote, Rigby?" he scolded the raccoon that was still inspecting the thing on the TV.

"What? No man, Skips got rid of that thing!"

"Did you have anything to do with this?"

"Well…Maybe…but you were there too!"

Mordecai flashed Rigby a questioning look, and then gasped. "Dude…no way…"

"Yes way!"

They looked back at the television, then looked back at each other and shouted in unison. "That control panel in the attic!"

Rigby peered back up at the swirling manifestation on the screen as Mordecai paced around the living room briskly. "Ugh! We're screwed dude! I told you we should've just left the thing alone! There was even a note! You remember what happened last time we ignored a note?"

"…We didn't have to set up the chairs?" Rigby responded carelessly.

"Well, yeah, but we let out that Destroyer of Worlds guy! What did we do now?"

"I don't know about you, but it looks like it goes somewhere." Rigby told himself, ignoring the blue jay as he reprimanded their most recent act of stupidity.

"Mordecai! Rigby! Are you coming or what!" Benson's irritated voice got louder as he neared the door. Rigby brought his hands up to his face. "We're dead man! We're dead, we're dead, we're dead! How can we hide this from him?" Rigby spat out anxiously. Mordecai nimbly yanked the blanket off of the couch and placed it on top of the TV, straightening it out to ensure that it covered up the portal on the screen. Mordecai took a step back and sighed with relief. "Dude…" Rigby said in awe as he stared at the blanket like it was a masterpiece. "That was _ninja._"

"I know dude; I _am _ninja. We'll fix it when we get back from shopping. C'mon, let's go before Benson drops his gumballs." The two clueless adolescent mammals waltzed out the front door laughing at Mordecai's comment about Benson's gumballs. Neither of them realized that the blanket was sucked through the television screen and sent spiraling through the tunnel.

X

By the time Kairo managed to ease her sore eyes open, her mother had already left for work. The sun hadn't even risen over the mountains yet, keeping the desert landscape as perceived through the attic window a pale, chalky, lifeless wasteland. It was strange, the effect the sun had on the desert. Without the sun, the vast dirt looked a repulsive grey, and the sky looked like a distorted dark blue that was layered with purple and black drapes. But with the sunlight kissing it, it was transformed into something entirely different. Perhaps it was this concept that caused Kairo to look so sickly that morning, with bags under her eyes and tearstains smeared all over her pale cheeks. She didn't need the sunlight. She despised the sunlight, how it transfixed on her to make her known to the world. No, she would much rather lurk in the shadows of the attic, where she knew that Amelia nor anybody else could see her. If they couldn't find her, they couldn't hurt her. If only Amelia didn't find her that morning.

It happened when Kairo sat up and stretched towards the attic ceiling, then noticed that there was a sliver of light coming through the attic door. She didn't even have to see that the barricaded antique furniture had been pushed out of the way to know that Amelia had gotten into her room. Kairo stared at the sliver of light in awe, asking herself how in the world Amelia could have pushed through the door by herself, when a shadow concealed the light and footsteps were heard behind her. Kairo rose onto her feet and flipped around, coming face to face with a very angry Amelia. Amelia clutched onto the steel bat so hard her knuckles were white, and before Kairo could try to move out of the way to avoid her sister's wrath, Amelia swung it at her with a grunt. The bat slammed into the side of her head with a deafening crack that echoed all the way down the staircase, and Kairo slumped to the ground.

Kairo could hear her sister's voice shouting at her, even though it sounded much like whispering. "I told you not to tell anybody! Now mama is suspicious!" Kairo blinked a few times before bringing her hand up to the side of her head. She felt liquid slowly running down her temple and streaming down her cheek. She was in for it now.

Before Kairo could even get up on her hands and knees, Amelia swung the bat again, hitting her rib cage's side and making Kairo shout in pain. Kairo nimbly rolled over, barely escaping a whack to the back of her head, and looked up with teary eyes. _I have to get out of here, _she thought to herself just as Amelia brought up her foot and kicked her in the stomach. "I told you to keep it a secret! I told you that if you spoke a word, I'd shut you up! I MEANT IT!" Amelia swung the bat once more, growling in anger as the hit missed Kairo's face and her younger foster sister quickly crawled over a box. Kairo lifted up her throbbing head and desperately looked around for an escape, even a hiding place to get away from Amelia. The window? She asked as she glanced at the opposite side of the room. No, the fall would kill her. The stairs? She turned her head to the entrance of the attic. Even if she did make it, Amelia would probably push her down, and there were _knives _in the kitchen that Amelia would probably take advantage of. Kairo took one last desperate glance all around the room before feeling a sharp pain in her leg and rolling onto her back.

It was no use. There was no escape. She was a prisoner, trapped in this cage with a madwoman bunkmate that sought enjoyment as she abused her. Kairo closed her eyes and burrowed her head into her arms, curling into a ball as Amelia kicked her repetitively in her arm, bruising it and occasionally ripping open her skin. No one would really care if I were to die today anyway, she thought to herself, before remembering the tunnel on the old television screen. As the new hope of refuge once again took over her ambition, Kairo looked up and quickly inspected the furniture. She spotted the television tumbled over onto its backside on the furthest side of the room, but the path was scattered with surplus boxes and chairs and other miscellaneous junk. Kairo glanced back at her bloodthirsty elder just in time to block her face with her frail arms as Amelia brought down the bat with unbelievable force. Kairo cried out when she heard the crack of it collide with her bone, and Amelia laughed with pleasure. "You're worthless, you know that?" She said, leaning over and pulling Kairo up to her feet by the collar of her shirt. Kairo struggled to remain on her feet as Amelia dragged her roughly towards the door, where Kairo was trying to avoid in the first place. _Oh no, _she thought to herself as she struggled weakly against Amelia. _I'm screwed. I'm dead, and I'm screwed. _She tried to yank free from her grasp, even try to wriggle out of her own shirt, but it was no use. When Amelia was about a foot away from the stairs, she forcefully tugged at Kairo's shirt in order to get her to stand, which was an exceedingly difficult task, considering the fact that she couldn't breathe.

The intoxicated woman laughed ecstatically before flipping her bloody, red-faced sister around and kissing her on the forehead. "I love you, sissy!" she snarled venemously. She flipped her back around and thrust the fourteen-year-old girl's head into the side of the wall before pushing her down the stairs. Amelia chuckled to herself as Kairo was sent tumbling down the hardwood steps.

Kairo couldn't see anything except the color red. She couldn't hear anything except for the sound of her limbs hitting the wood as she fell and the sound of her cruel sister laughing. She couldn't feel anything in her body, for every single limb hurt. She was dizzy, and couldn't keep her eyes open long enough to focus because she would roll back over onto another step again. Down, down, down…the fall seemed endless, every stair cut into her skin or banged up against her body. Finally, the world stood still.

Stillness. Kairo appreciated this state of remaining motionless much more than she did a few days ago, a few weeks ago. She didn't know what happened, for a split second she didn't know who she was. It wasn't until Amelia kicked her on her side before walking out the door to school when everything came flooding back to her. She was Kairo, an orphan child who witnessed her parents burn to death, was sent back and forth between the orphanage and foster homes, and was currently in the midst of dealing with an abusive, alcoholic madwoman who wanted Kairo out of existence. Perhaps after this, she would be. She couldn't quite feel her body until she felt a small sense of tingling spread from her fingertips all the way down her arm, until her entire body felt fizzy. Then the pain set in, and Kairo cried into the kitchen floor until she threw up.

After another hour or so of weeping and vomiting, Kairo took a few deep breaths to stop hyperventilating and lifted her head. The sun had already risen, coming through the stained glass kitchen windows and flashing onto the broken girl sprawled out on the floor. But in this certain setting, the sunlight had no effect. There was nothing beautiful to see beyond the kitchen window, except for the ornate wallpaper. There was no way the sunlight could enchant this picture to make it more appealing to the eye. Kairo tried to sit up on shaky arms, but fell back down after feeling the unbearable pain that spread throughout her body. She tried again, this time successfully channeling the pain into ambition, and got onto her arms and knees. She was going to get out of here. There was no way she was going to call the police, not so Amelia would frame her for trying to attack her, or for some other ridiculous reason that the rest of the world would believe. There was no way that she could try running away, they'll find her and bring her back again. Kairo grabbed the rail of the staircase with a bruised hand and managed to pull herself up from the ground, which was now smothered in blood, tears, and puke nonetheless. She heaved herself up the stairs and stumbled through the door before collapsing onto her stomach and resting for a moment or two. Kairo picked herself back up and neared the television screen, but a deafening screech made her cover her ears and fall back onto the floor. Her sight went blurry, her ambition died, and her body went numb.

The sun looked through the attic window curiously for the next twenty four hours, anxiously trying to get a peek at the girl that it had seen moments ago weeping on the floor of the kitchen. After realizing that she was in the shadows, the sun gave up and burrowed back behind the mountains, leaving the dying girl all alone in the darkness, and questioning whether or not the sun will rise to see her alive the next day.


	5. How Quaint

Early that morning, an indescribable sensation splashed over Kairo's entire arm like a wave; and despite the battered condition that she was currently in, she couldn't help herself and started to giggle madly. It felt much like her arm fell asleep, yet she could wriggle her fingers with ease, and the circulation wasn't at all constricted. She would've looked up to see whether or not Amelia's Tabby Cat, Vernon, had snuck out of his cozy little kennel again and was giving her arm a bath (perhaps licking off all the dry blood), but she was much too busy chuckling hysterically. Sure, she had just been hammered by an intoxicated careless teenager and hadn't eaten anything for about two days, but whatever was happening to her arm was, needless to say, turning a horrible predicament into a giggle fest.

Kairo managed to blink the tears out of her eyes, from both the pain and the laughter, and lifted her pounding head up to face the Tabby Cat.

But there was no cat. Just her long, scrawny arm that somehow threw itself halfway through an old, dusty TV screen. _Well that's odd, _she thought to herself in awe, before she finally realized that half of her arm was in the Television and screamed with a dry, hoarse voice. Kairo desperately yanked her arm from the swirling thing in front of her as she managed to get back up on shaky legs, only to clumsily slip on the antique bear rug and nearly topple over face first into the portal. She violently waved her arms in counter-clockwise circles, and to her sore back's demise, toppled backwards instead of forwards, hitting her head against a cardboard box as she fell.

"OWW!" Kairo bellowed at the top of her lungs, skillfully scaring away a crow sitting atop the roof of the vacant house. Her head felt like it was thwacked by a steel baseball bat with full force, which it had been not too long ago. She sat up and gently ran her finger down the bruise on her temple. It wasn't as bad as it had been before, not bleeding and not as swollen as it was when she first obtained it. Nonetheless, it was the cause for her blistering headache, which unfortunately amplified the sound of something mewing behind her.

Kairo felt something coarse and furry nudge her elbow, but before she could turn around to see whether it was Amelia's sweet tabby cat or that disgusting little rat that resided with her in the attic, it scampered away, off to lord knows where. Kairo sighed as she heard the creatures little paws pat against the wood floor hastily; Even the animals didn't want to be with her. Or, perhaps they didn't want to be seen with her? She carelessly absorbed herself in her own thoughts and became oblivious to the rest of the world.

_Maybe animals have a reputation. Maybe if they're caught hanging around a sorry little broken toy like me, they'd get laughed at by the other cats and dogs of the neighborhood. Maybe that's why the kids at school avoid me. Maybe that's why the kids at the orphanage-_

Before Kairo could even finish her meandering outlandish thoughts, a seemingly deafening meow screeched behind her. Kairo clumsily got on her feet and was about to turn around when the meowing got louder as if it were coming closer. And, considering the fact that it jumped off of the attic shelf and had launched itself towards Kairo's back, this had to be the case. Its little tan paws crashed into her bruised back with unbelievable force, howling a mew of determination as it did so. The flimsy impact sent Kairo flying through the spiraling blue vortex on the screen. The cat landed perfectly on top of the TV with pride. At first, he thought that she would be alright on the other side of that thing, whatever it was. But then he recalled how easily she lost balance and slipped into the portal, and the cat let out what was supposed to be a sigh; he was now questioning himself whether or not the abused girl would be okay there, since being light enough to be carried off by the wind was a degrading trait to have indeed.

X/X/X/X/X/X/X/X/X/X/X/X/X

"Oh, jolly good show!" the lollipop man squealed with delight as he departed the park managers' office. The overoptimistic lollipop man, equipped with a positive attitude and a joyful demeanor as well as a curious mind, giddily descended the houses' staircase. He certainly did enjoy the meetings that were held in Benson's office, even when Mordecai and Rigby were negative about them. He quite liked how his gumball machine friend insisted that he should be the one to pick the movie for that nights' movie night. And even if Rigby stated that Pops always picked the "stone age excuses for cool movies", Benson had allowed him to decide anyway. Pops couldn't necessarily put how much he loved his friends at the park into words; After all, they were always there for him when he needed help.

If someone were to differ this statement, Pops would, without a doubt, explain all of the events in which he needed their assistance all the while using his old-style words. He would bring up the time when he was too nervous to give a speech for his father, and how Mordecai and Rigby helped him overcome his fear. And he'd bring up the time when he was ridiculed by those rappers, and how the two mammals recited poetry with him in their rap battle. Even now, those memories that flooded his bulbous head only resulted in him spinning around and laughing as he entered the living room.

Pops hummed to himself with glee when he knelt down in front of the movie shelf next to the TV to pick out a movie. Benson suggested that they buy a shelf for the movies that Pops collected over the years so that whenever it was Pops' turn to pick the movie, he wouldn't have to spend half an hour taking them out of their attic and fumbling through the box to choose one. Pops inspected his collection of black and white animations leisurely. He was thoroughly inspecting the summary of a rather eye-catching commentary when something on the Television Screen caught his eye. Pops set the old VCR down and turned is abnormally large head towards the TV, and his eyes grew wide. An arm was sticking out of the TV. Yes, there was a long, skinny arm dangling out of the edge of the television screen.

Normally, Pops would have screamed and dashed up the stairs to seek the peaceful atmosphere in the sanctuary of his room. But he then told himself out loud what he was seeing. "An arm protruding from a television screen?" after saying it out loud, it reminded him that he was not as caught up with the modern technology nowadays as Mordecai and Rigby were, and his expression changed from fear to curiosity as he dashed to the screen.

"Oh, how quaint! This must be the newfangled three-dimensional animation I have been hearing about lately!" The clueless gentleman waltzed over to the DVD player and clicked the eject button, revealing an empty slot. His puzzled face shot up to the staircase, back to the arm still hanging lifelessly from the screen, and back to the empty DVD console. "How can there be…perhaps it is a VCR…?" he slowly thought to himself, starting to near the arm in awe. "Or…perhaps it is real?…" Before he could get any closer, it twitched, wriggling its fingers around violently. Pops jumped back in surprise. The fingers stopped moving, and in a split second, it yanked itself back through the screen and disappeared. Pops, after staring at the swirling thing on the screen for quite some time, shook his head and sighed.

"What a pity. I expected a better production from these cutting-edge innovative chaps. Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to opt for one of my movies then." The ill-informed, ignorant man was just about to walk back over to his movie shelf when a loud noise came from behind the thing on the TV. "OWW!" a feminine voice bellowed, though it sounded faint coming from the portal. Pops stopped in his tracks and flipped around on the heels of his neat dress shoes. _I believe that this player must be malfunctioning. _The incompetent lollipop man thought to himself as he neared the television. And without warning, something came flying out of the screen. Pops jumped and his atypical high pitched voice squealed much like a woman. The figure that came from the other side of the strange whirling vortex on the screen landed in an awkward jumble in front of the couch, furiously trying to untangle itself. Finally, it looked up, and Pops caught a glimpse of who it actually was.

A young woman. A _very _young woman, considering the fact that she had those large, childlike eyes and a small, round nose. The girl's superficially grey eyes grew wide as they landed on Pop's head, and only grew wider when he reacted.

"Oh, good show! Jolly good production indeed, mhmm, I must say so myself! Good show!" he said as he clapped enthusiastically and a smile was plastered across his face. Kairo looked up at him peculiarly. Where _was _she? Maybe she died up there in that cold attic? Because it felt quite warm here. _Gee, _Kairo thought as the creepy man ceased his excited dancing, _I wonder how Amelia's gonna cover this up._

Pops stopped cheering when he realized that she was all the way out of the television. No 3D movie could make such a thing, could they? No. No, they absolutely could not, unless it was an animatronics theatrical show, or a Broadway production. So this girl had to be real. Pops' inspected her curiously. For a young respectable woman, she seemed quite shabby. Her hair was knotted and matted across part of her face, but he could still make out a big, black bruise across her cheekbone. Her long, skinny arms looked frail, like they were skinny branches that were about ready to snap. Not to mention the long, jagged cuts all up and down her elbow and shoulder, which was revealed by a torn, ragged shirt. Her bony collarbone looked as if it were going to but through her pale, bruised skin.

Pops shook his head and reminded himself of his manners. "Why hello there, young lady! I'm Pops!" Pops exclaimed as he nearly jumped like a leap frog to shake her scrawny hand. Kairo flinched as he grasped her hand, and he pulled it back with a dumbfounded expression. "Oh, um…S-Sorry." she stuttered nervously, still questioning whether or not she was dead. Pops eyed her and gasped worriedly. "It seems you are injured, and badly injured at that." Pops straightened up and thrust his finger in the air. "Madame, you must visit the hospital immediately so that your wounds are properly taken care of! Come, I will fetch the cart." Pops swung back around and headed toward the door.

"H-hey, wait! Wait a second!" the girl called desperately, causing Pops to turn back around.

"What seems to be the matter? Are your legs hurting as well? Perhaps I should carry you?"

"What? No! I-It's just…I don't know where I am. Can you tell me?"

"We are in the city park, of course! Where else do you think you were, silly youngin? Now come along, and we will purchase you some new attire as well!"

"B-But…hold on, what's your name again sir?"

"My name is Pops," Pops said enthusiastically, walking back towards the girl still awkwardly sitting on the floor. Kairo shifted uneasily and fidgeted with a torn part of her shirt. "Well…" Kairo thought about this. In the park, huh? And, with no one here knowing about her condition, except that weird guy. Maybe this could work out after all. "Well, Pops, I need you to do me a favor." Pops sat on the edge of the couch and stared at her oddly as she spoke.

"I-I need you to forget these," she said, pointing to her open cuts. "Forget them, and pretend you never saw them. I have to find someplace to stay, anywhere to get away from…" she slowly peeked over her shoulder and nodded towards the portal. Pops tweaked his head slightly as a sign of confusion. "You…are afraid of that blue vortex over there? Why, I assure you there's nothing to be afraid of!"

"No Pops, it's not like that, it's-"

"But, if you're certain, I am sure Benson won't mind if you stay. We'd have to get on his good side though, if you know what I mean!" Pops raised his eyebrows and giggled. Kairo just stared at him with disgust, being mistaken and not understanding that Benson could be charmed by a few bribes involving his two lazy employees and their work ethic.

"However," Pops carried on without a care in the world. "Those wounds must be taken care of! Surely you can't walk around the park without stitches and whatnot to keep them from getting infected, heavens no!"

"Listen Pops. I need you to do me a big, BIG favor."

"Yes?""You have to _swear _not to tell anyone about them.""What? Why on earth would you ask such a thing? I couldn't possibly-"

"I can take care of myself just fine Pops, but I just…gah, it's hard to explain. I don't want people knowing about this."

"Well, I suppose…How did you manage to obtain such an unfortunate burden anyways?"

"That's…what I don't want people finding out. It's-It's a thing, I guess. Just, promise you won't tell anyone."

"Then how will they get any better?"

"_Promise!" _

Pops glanced back at the girl sitting smack dab in the center of the living room. Her large watery eyes were prodding at him like a small puppy wanting to be loved. But then he glanced down at the bruises and cuts all over her, and it was more like a dog missing both of its front paws wanting to slip on booties and asking its owner not to say anything about it. "Well…alright then. I promise. As long as you promise me that you'll take care of yourself, miss-"

"I will, I will! But for now, er, umm…" her voice faded away as she looked down on herself as well. She looked back up with eager eyes. "Pops? You got anything to cover these up for now?"

"…I'll take a quick look," Pops somberly trudged up the stairs and flung open the door to his room. He walked towards the closet and pulled its ornate doors open gently, plucking off a gray sweatshirt from the hangar and closing them back shut. He walked back downstairs and handed her the sweatshirt. "I'm afraid this is the only feminine attire I have. It used to be my mothers, but I hope it will do."

"It'll do just fine Pops." she said as she pulled it over her torn shirt and battered limbs. It covered her hips excessively, which Kairo especially favored, since it covered more of her bruises.

"Yeah, and then the entire world explodes! The effects are so cool!" an eager voice got louder as the soft puttering of feet started coming down the stairs. "Well, yeah, but the assassin died dude. That's a stupid ending, and what ever happened to the ninjas?" a deeper voice said, and a slightly louder pounding started coming down the stairs. "Will you guys just stop complaining? Pops is picking the movie, so we're most likely not watching some stupid sci-fi techno-ninja crap again." A mature, irritated voice said hastily. Both Pops and Kairo looked towards the stairs as three figures walked into to living room. And Kairo's eyes grew wide at the sight of a raccoon, a blue jay, and a living gumball machine.


	6. A Collision

The first thing Benson set his eyes on was the portal, which he'd disregarded last night thinking it was just the effects from those stupid drugs he had to take. Yet, there it was before him, a swirling dark colored cyclone residing smack dab in the center of the television screen. The second thing the dumbfounded gumball machine laid his eyes on was Pops, clutching in his hand a black and white commentary and bearing a surprised expression. He certainly wasn't expecting them to come downstairs this soon. And then the third thing that caught Benson's eye was the girl.

There was something strange about her, no doubt about it. After the first glance, he knew that there was something…_odd _about her, everything about her seemed a little crooked. Benson stopped in his tracks along with his two employees and allowed their eyes to inspect the scene before them: A nervous Pops, a young girl, and a portal. But Benson allowed himself to take a closer look. The young girl looked more like a rag doll that had been used as a chew toy by the meanest bulldog in the neighborhood. Her long, tangled black hair acted as a barrier, concealing half of her face, and in return making her look pale; deathly pale. She was wearing one of Pops' inherited sweater, and it was much too big for her, seeing as it slid off one of her shoulders and revealed beneath it a bony collarbone and a torn shirt. Her skinny jeans were porous with tears and holes. And, if Benson looked close enough, he could make out red smeared marks along her legs. Dark red, as if it were blood.

Benson turned his gaze back to the girl's face, only to see that she was looking straight at him, into his wide eyes.

The first thing Kairo set her eyes on was the lollipop man, which she'd previously feared, only to see that he wasn't at all capable of hurting a butterfly. And there he was before her, an anxious expression smeared across his face as he looked at the people entering the living room. The second thing the dumbfounded girl laid her eyes on was a raccoon and a blue jay, both staring at the portal behind her and eyeing back and forth from it to the third figure standing far in front of the group, as if they knew they were in trouble. And then the third thing that caught Kairo's eye was the gumball machine.

There was something strange about him, no doubt about it. After the first glance, she knew that there was something…_weird _about him, everything about him seemed a little crooked. Kairo's limbs paralyzed after sensing that they were all looking at her, all of those whacky creatures in her seemingly impossible dream. She took some time to inspect the predicament before her: A nervous Pops, two mammals walking on heir hind legs, and a living gumball machine, with limbs and all. But Kairo allowed herself to take a closer look. The gumball machine looked more like an overworked father that had been taking care of a dozen children with no help at all. His pink gumballs looked like splotches of color from behind his dome. One could barely make out the spherical pieces of candy, which looked more like clusters of pink tinted marbles than anything else. He wasn't necessarily wearing anything, even though the two mammals were fully clothed. His short, red-painted torso bore a heart-shaped crank and a matching gray dispenser. His skinny silver legs weren't shaking like the raccoon's and the blue jay's were. And, if Kairo looked close enough, she could see that he wasn't at all anxious, or frightened, or angry at all. He seemed to be focusing on something, his expression slightly intensified, mostly relaxes.

Kairo readjusted her gaze back to the gumball machine's face, only to see that he was looking straight at her, into her wide eyes.

"What's going on here?" Skips asked as he skipped through the open door. Kairo and Benson, though they weren't aware of it, had been staring into each other's eyes for five minutes straight, causing the raccoon to nudge the blue jay and whisper something inaudible into his ear. But at the sound of Skips voice, the gossiping mammals flipped around to the front door, Pops set down his commentary to turn his attention to the yeti, and Kairo and Benson broke their connection. Their heads swiveled to the humongous yeti as he closed the door behind him and headed deeper into the living room, inspecting the scene before him as he did so. After a few seconds of being uncomfortably watched by the creature towering over her, Kairo focused her wide-eyed gaze and looked up at him with unfathomable unease.

"Um…Sup?"

The yeti turned back around to the two mammals just as Benson grew angry and started to reprimand them, pivoting on the back of his metal foot and thrusting his finger towards them. "What did you two do now!" his irritated voice bellowed, causing the two to take a step back.

"What? Dude, we didn't do anything! Promise!" Mordecai begged.

"Yeah man, we thought that control panel was supposed to be like an auto-tuner or something!" Rigby added, flailing his arms violently in an effort to show him he was innocent.

Skips sighed and shook his head. "You two messed with the Portal Panel in the attic?"

Benson flipped around with curiosity written over every inch of his face. "The _Portal Panel_?" Skips nodded and sat down on the couch and began to describe it.

"What you see on the screen is a Portal. It is not an object, nor a device; It is an entity, a manifestation used to call forth two different worlds and bring them together as one. The portal will choose one being to be sent into one world, and later, another to be sent into theirs."

The group looked at the yeti questioningly. Skips face palmed and sighed.

"The portal rescues a being from their own fate by altering their location; automatically."

"Whoa, whoa, wait a second," Rigby protested as he stuck his finger into the air. "So, if we didn't go up there and mess with it, then this would've happened anyway?""Depends. Did you drag it out, or did it find its way to you?"

Rigby turned his finger into a fist, then lowered his head in shame. "It…sorta fell on me. But I didn't, like, pull it out from a box or anything, there it was!"

Skips swiveled his attention towards the girl. "And what about you?" Skips turned his attention to Kairo, who flinched and looked around in confusion. "Huh, what? Wha-what about me? Who?"

"How did you find your way through the portal?"

"Um, uh…My step-sisters'…cat…pushed me in." Rigby laughed and took a step toward her with amusement clearly showing on the features of his face. "Your _cat _pushed you in? I didn't even know that was physically possible!" The raccoon continued to laugh hysterically as Kairo placed her hands on her hips.

"First of all, it was my step-sisters cat. And second, it could push you in easy as pie!""I only weigh 58 pounds!" Rigby protested."So? What does that have to do with anything?" Their conversation turned from a laughing matter to an argument.

"That means you way a little over how much I do! You're lighter than a feather!""No, you are! You're tinier than me!""Maybe your cat friend didn't like competition!""You sayin' that I can't take on a cat?"

"I'm saying that you're part cat, and you couldn't even win a catfight for your life! OOOH!"

Kairo stopped and brought her hand up and felt through her knotty hair, running her fingers against something soft and fuzzy.

"Hmm. Well that's interesting." She said as she looked over her shoulder to see a maroon tail calmly wagging with a pattern.

Skips looked back at the portal. "You said a cat pushed you in?" Kairo looked up at him and nodded. "That's why you have those ears and tail. The portal gives you certain qualities of the thing that caused you to enter it."

"Dude," Kairo stared off into space. "That's wicked."

"And how old are you in human years?""Dude, I'm part cat, not _all _cat. Gimme a break."

"That's not what I mean." Skips said sternly. "If you were originally in this world, you'd subtract your age by three. If you were in another world, you'd add three. That's how the system works."

Kairo stared off into space until he finished his sentence. "You know? I don't like this already; It has math problems. That's lame."

Rigby hopped up and down enthusiastically. "Oh, I know my human age! I'm twenty!" Mordecai leaned up against the wall. "That makes me twenty too I guess."

They looked at Benson, who sighed and crossed his arms. "Twenty four." They all turned their heads to Kairo, who still sat awkwardly in the center of the room.

"Um…uh, if you add three, then…I'm 17 ½."

Rigby laughed again.

"What's so funny!"

"You're only fourteen!""Fourteen ½!" Kairo shouted, Benson taking notice of how hoarse it was.

"Um, pardon me." Pops barely spoke up, raising his hand into the air ever so politely. Everyone turned their attention to him.

"Well, I was wondering, I already told Kairo that she could-"

Rigby butted in again, seizing this moment to make fun of her. "Kairo? Isn't that an Egyptian name?"

"I'm not Egyptian!"

"So you _say,_" Rigby mumbled under his breath continued. "I already told Kairo that she could stay here, therefore-"

"What?" Benson, Mordecai, and Rigby asked him with disbelief.

"Oh my!" Pops exclaimed at their surprised response. "Was I not to be a good host and give her a place to stay? Besides, I'm sure that is the reason why the portal let her through in the first place!"

Skips stood up. "Pops has a point. The Portal knows what it's doing.""And besides," Kairo spoke up with a scratchy voice, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. "If it turns out it made a mistake, I could hop right on through it and go back!"

The portal closed. Kairo eyed the empty television screen and turned back as Rigby spoke. "You just had to say something, didn't you?""You see?" Pops exclaimed proudly, standing up and straightening out his fancy attire. "It clearly wants her to stay. Am I mistaken?"

Skips grunted in agreement. "Benson, you shouldn't deny the portals. They mean good."

Benson looked around the room, still overwhelmed with what was going on. A tattered young girl with an Egyptian name, but clearly not Egyptian. Two common troublemakers messing with something that was eventually going to happen in the first place. All this talk about an intelligent paranormal being who had the power to send people to other worlds, in order to save them from their own fates. It was too much to bear; he was frazzled, confused. But both Skips and Pops had proved to him that it was of importance, so he sighed and shrugged his aching shoulders. "I guess; there's a guest room next to Pops' room, so it shouldn't be a prob-"

"Oh, good show! Jolly good show!" Pops hopped up and down and embraced Kairo in a bear hug. Mordecai and Rigby laughed and went to introduce each other, followed by Skips and Benson.

Rigby thrust out his brown furry hand and took Kairo's. "Hi! I'm Rigby!" He said immaturely, and Kairo shot him a playful stink-eye. Mordecai nudged him away with ease and took her pale hand into his feathered one. "I'm Mordecai."

"Sup?" she said back before he walked away to follow Rigby. Skips skipped up and nodded. "Skips." he trudged away back out the front door, and the two mammals went with Pops to help clean up the guest room, leaving Kairo and Benson standing awkwardly in the living room. Benson nervously rubbed the back of his dome and held out his hand. "Er, uh, I'm Benson." Kairo didn't hesitate taking his hand and shaking it enthusiastically. "Kairo! Not with a C, with a K. I'm not Egyptian if you were wondering, my birth certificate says Katra, but my step mom can't read. She's a retard, you know?" Benson looked at her awkwardly and nodded, and cleared his throat, not really knowing how to respond to her sudden optimistic attitude. "Y-yeah, you know, you'd better go and make sure they aren't vandalizing your room. A-and since you're stuck here, you're gonna be helping out at the park."

Kairo's eyes lit up visibly. "A park? That's where I am? Y'mean, with a playground and sandbox and everything?" she wholeheartedly exclaimed.

"Well, we have a small playground, but most of it is just scenery; rolling hills of grass, trees, benches, the usual. Why do you ask?"

"Oh. I-I used to go to a specific park all the time. It had a huge playground, and kids, and my parents and I would…"

Her voice trailed off, as well as her gaze and her attention. Benson observed the sudden alteration, but had no time to take action, for she'd already straightened back up and stuck her hand against her forehead in a sloppy solute.

"The room will be cleaned out to the greatest of my ability sir!" She laughed a little bit before dashing up the stairs to the spare room where the three groundskeepers were eagerly waiting for her assistance…

Leaving a confused gumball machine standing at the base of the stairs still staring where Kairo was moments before.


	7. Dust

"Dude, don't you think that was a little weird?" Rigby couldn't help asking the blue jay as they attempted to relocate the boxes cluttered around the guest room. "What was a little weird?" Mordecai responded with a grunt of effort, lowering a heavy box and tucking it under the bed slyly; if Benson didn't notice it, it would avoid the hassle of having to carry it all the way upstairs to the attic. "You know, how that cat girl _supposedly _came through the TV?" Rigby plopped down lazily on the bed and swiped his hand against the comforter to get rid of the lumpiness. Mordecai wiped the dust off from his hands onto his jacket and sighed. "Rigby," he started to say, leaning up against the wall in exhaustion. "Stuff like this happens all the time. The only difference this time is that it would've happened anyway; it wasn't just another one of our screw ups, so can we just drop it?"

"Why are mad dude? Besides, don't you think it was just a _little _weird when Benson and that cat chick were staring at each other like that? I think they dig each other man,"

"First of all, I'm not mad; I'm tired. Second, Benson isn't _digging _anyone, he was probably about to piss his pants."

"But Benson doesn't wear any pants!"

Mordecai groaned with annoyance and stared down at the raccoon bearing an irritated expression. "Dude! I said just drop it! Now get off your lazy butt and help me move the-"

Just then, Kairo waltzed through the open door accompanied only by the shadow cast behind her. Her maroon tail calmly waved behind her, as if wishing the staircase farewell. "Hey guys," she tried to say nonchalantly, struggling to disregard the scratchy sweatshirt Pops had given her not too long ago. "How is it-" Kairo took a good whiff of a cloud of meandering dust and sneezed in a quick, small burst. She sneezed just like a cat. "I'm gonna laugh so hard if you drink like a cat at the dinner table," Rigby commented with a sneer. "Shut up!" Kairo retorted and trying to glare at him from behind her mat of hair before recovering her purpose. "Now why the heck am I up…Oh yeah! Skips asked me if you're ready to bring up the dre-" In the midst of her sentence, Kairo eyed the scenery of the room and froze.

This guest room seemed so familiar, how all of the miscellaneous boxes created limitless passageways and trails snaking across the room. The dust looked more like stardust, a star crushed beneath the foot of space, and wafted slowly down to the ground. Everything that the sun touched through the open window was a shade of gold or yellow, making everything look absolutely breathtaking.

Everything except the shadows.

"_Why do you keep on doing this Kairo? Amelia loves you!"_

"_Mother, I can't handle feeling this…rejected!"_

"_YOU'RE NEVER HERE! HOW WOULD YOU KNOW!"_

One by one, Kairo felt the broken memories unwillingly obscure her vision of the room and send shivers of fear down her knobby spine.

"_Ma! Emmie! Siera! Pony! Wake up, there's a fire!"_

"_I told you I'd shut you up if you told someone – I MEANT IT!"_

"_I said sorry sheriff! Please, please!"  
><em>

"Umm, Kairo?" A concerned voice spoke behind her. But Kairo couldn't hear anything. She was too engrossed by the traumatizing images that were flashing before her eyes to interpret anything occurring in reality. Her face went numb, and she couldn't even feel a warm tear roll down her cheek.

"_Ah, just the right size."_

"_I don't like your parents, little girl. They're bad people. You deserve wherever you end up."_

"_You've killed them, my dearest daughter. You __**murderer**_**."**

Someone grabbed Kairo's shoulder, and caused her to freak out and shout before flipping around. A stunned Benson took a quivering step back and dropped his clipboard at her reaction. Kairo sighed loudly. "Jeez, dude, you scared the _CRAP _outta me!" she exclaimed after an awkward silence, before feeling more than one pair of eyes on her. She looked over her scrawny shoulder. Mordecai and Rigby eyed her as if she'd grown another head.

Benson eyed her as if she'd grown three.

Kairo shrugged and laughed it off, hoping it would urge the others to look away. It actually worked, to her surprise, for all but one. Benson took a step closer. "Have you been…crying?" he asked quizzically. Kairo shook her head. "No, why the heck would I be crying?" she gave out a small, fake chuckle. Just as she brought her hand up to wipe the wetness from beneath her eyes, Benson did the same. Their hands brushed against each other for a split second, luring their gazes to each other's faces. Their eyes scanned one another's for a brief moment of time, before both of their faces flushed red and they jerked back their hands.

"No, just the allergies, and the, uh, dust…"

"Yeah, the dust can really be…"

"…Yeah…"

Benson and Kairo looked down at the ground, feeling their faces slowly fade back to their normal state, only to have them redden with anger as Rigby hopped off the bed and let out a victorious shout. "OOOH! I told you Mordecai! I told you they we-" Mordecai nimbly punched him in the arm to silence him and turned his attention back to his boss. "Don't worry dude. The room's almost done; we just have a few more boxes to move is all." Hearing his employee's frantic effort to keep from getting yelled at, Benson regained his position as well as his clipboard. "A-alright, get it done ASAP, preferably before Skips comes up with the dresser. Got it?"

"Got it," Mordecai said, flicking Rigby in the ear to get him to respond. "Gah! Yes, got it, sheesh."

"Oh, and one more thing," Benson added, pointing to the bed. "Get those boxes out of under the bed and carry them up to the attic or your fired!"

As quick as a flash, Mordecai and Rigby hopped off the bed and started dragging the boxes out. Benson turned around to face Kairo, only to see the empty space where she was not one minute ago.

After splashing her face with ice cold water, Kairo inspected herself in the bathroom mirror, carefully taking note on what features have changed and how drastic it was. The cat ears and the tail were a given, for they had already been pointed out by a certain annoying raccoon. It shocked her to see that the color of the fur was dark red. The pair of ears looked as if they were previously painted purple, then doused with red paint after realizing that no cat had purple ears. The red was a rich, mesmerizing dark – blood red. And yet, for jumping up the scale from 14 to 17, nothing really changed. And if they had changed, it was to the subtlest degree. Kairo pointed out how her nose was a little rounder, and her cheekbones were a tad higher. Her hair was still the same old, dusty-looking black, and her neck looked like it had been stretched out, almost two inches longer. She had to nudge her hair out of her eyes to see that there was no slits that the cats eyes usually had, and that they were the same washed out, boring gray color that they were before. Gradually, she moved her gaze down her body. The small, petite shoulders belonging to the Kairo that was fourteen were still intact, and to her figure's demise, it remained almost exactly the same.

_So much for my hourglass. _She thought to herself as she grimaced at her diminutive body. Then she sighed and wondered about what else could've been worthy of loathing. Just as her mind comprehended the supposedly sarcastic question, her attention drifted from her shortchanged figure to her arms, still concealed by the gray sweater Pops had given to her. She rolled them up with no hesitation. Sure enough, the wounds were still there, in worse condition than when she obtained them. They were splattered with blood and random bruises, which made her seem inhuman.

_Inhuman. _The word bounced around in her head like a bullet ricocheting off the items it touched. The first person that came to mind was Amelia.

For some weird reason, Benson came to mind second.

A gentle knock on the door caused Kairo to flinch and aggressively yank the sleeves down to where only her fingertips were visible.

"Um, yah?"

"Are you okay? Dude, you've been in there, for like, an hour." It was the use of 'dude' that helped Kairo confirm that it was Mordecai. She half expected Benson.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She managed to say through the door, all the while thinking: _I've been in here for an hour looking at myself? How narcissistic of me. _She opened the door, and Mordecai took his hands out of his pockets.

"Hey, for dinner, Muscleman brought over-"

"Who's Muscleman?" Kairo couldn't help but ask. "You'd best wait to introduce yourself," Mordecai said as his expression turned into disgust. "Anyways, he bought some grilled cheese sandwiches from Cheezers. You want one?" He asked, pointing his thumb in the direction of the stairway. Kairo looked away from him as she responded. "No thanks, I'm not hungry." Kairo's stomach growled hungrily. Mordecai chuckled. "Dude, you're _starving_,"

"Maybe she's anorexic," Rigby snickered as he waltzed behind Mordecai and into his room. "Shut up, Rigby." Mordecai called after him. "Jus' sayin!" Rigby called back.

"Alright, alright." Kairo said, putting her hands up in surrender and then leaning against the doorway. "Later. I'll have one a little later." Mordecai shrugged and walked back down the stairs. "We'll save ya one!" he called. "Kay, thanks!" she called back, standing at the base of the stairs. She looked down where she was. At the foot of the stairs.

"_I love you sissy."_ Kairo took a step back and leaned against the wall, shaking her head furiously to get rid of the pesky recollections of her tumbling down the attic stairway. Noticing that this only hurt her head more, Kairo took in a deep breath and stumbled to her room. She was glad to see that all of the boxes had been moved out, and the dust was no longer drifting around everywhere she turned, despite the few specks visible in the sunlight. Kairo closed the window shut and yanked back the curtains, dramatically darkening the room. _That's more like it, _she said as she jumped onto her bed and rested her throbbing head against her plump pillow. _I'm just gonna rest my head for one minute, _she told herself, snuggling deeper into the pillow in hopes of ridding the headache. _Just to get it on straight…_

When Benson questioned the whereabouts of Kairo at the dinner table, he'd received more responses than he was hoping for. "Is she coming down to eat any time soon?" He asked, eyeing his employees as he held in his hands a greasy grilled cheese. "Well, she told me she was gonna come down a little later." Mordecai said with food in his mouth. "You wanna know who else was gonna come down a little later?" Muscleman asked before sticking the entire grilled cheese into his mouth. "_Mah Mowm!" _he said, with the unchewed sandwich still resting in his cheeks. He high fived with the ghost sitting next to him before diving into a pile of cheesy curly fries before him. "Why, if she doesn't come down here to eat soon, I'm afraid that Muscleman might finish her food for her!" Pops added as he cut his sandwich into bite sized bits with his fork and knife.

"Pshh, who cares where she's at? Besides, she's probably taking a _cat _nap!" Rigby laughed at his own ridiculous joke before being hit upside the head by the blue jay sitting next to him, causing the sandwich to fall out of his hands and onto his napkin. Benson swallowed another bite of the sandwich. He couldn't possibly take any of his employees seriously. All but Skips, who probably knew more than he did. "Skips, you seen her?" The yeti shook his head and responded blandly. "She's had a rough day; I wouldn't be surprised if she's asleep by now."

"Hey Benson?" Rigby asked, trying to keep from eyeing his boss in an inappropriate manner. "Why are you wondering where Cat Woman is? She's just like us: annoying and skittish." Mordecai hit him upside the head again, and Benson set down his sandwich. He was no longer hungry.

"Her name is _Kairo, _not _Cat Woman. _Actually, if my nosy employee really wants to know, I'm worried about her."

"Worried?" Rigby snapped. "Why? She's doing just fine."

"No, she's not. Didn't you see her in the spare room today? She…" After trying to scavenge a word to describe her actions, he shook his head. "You know what? Why do you care?"

"No, I asked why do _you _care?"

"Okay, why do you _not _care, Rigby? Why do you not like her so much?"

"She's a freak show! Now answer my question!"

Skips whistled loud enough to get everyone's attention; especially trying to get his fuming boss's focus. "Listen guys. We're going to have to adjust and learn more about her before making assumptions." He eyed Rigby with indescribable vigilance. "Do you understand, Rigby?"

"Yeah, yeah, fine." He said carelessly, now prodding his sandwich with his finger. "Kairo's in her room," he added, suddenly ashamed that he called her a freak show.

"Thank you, Rigby." Benson said sternly. He stood up and scooted his chair in before taking his napkin and the crusts of his sandwich and throwing it away. He was about to walk up the stairs when Skips called his name.

"Yeah, Skips?"

"Aren't you supposed to be using your crutches?" he asked, Mordecai and Rigby chuckling quietly. Benson sighed. "Yeah, yeah, hold on a sec," He stumbled up the stairs and walked toward Kairo's door, which was slightly creaked open. He didn't hesitate to gently push it open a little more and poke his head through it. And, ironically, Kairo wasn't balled up like a cat. She was sprawled out smack dab in the center of the bed, the blankets pushed all the way down and drooping off of the bed. In her arms, she squeezed a spare pillow. Benson couldn't help but to smile. He quietly tiptoed in and pulled the covers up, and gently placing them over her. He stopped when he saw her face, a mix of fear and pain. What could she possibly be dreaming of that caused her to look so afraid? Benson shook of the question and headed back out, looking at her over his shoulder one last time before closing the door.

_Author's Note:_

_Hi guys. First off, and I'm not just saying this to say it, thanks so much for reading/commenting. I truly appreciate the input and I am thankful for your opinions and your time spent reading this. This is just the beginning you guys, in the future there will be several important events taking place, most of which will be placed into most of these several categories: action, adventure, drama, suspense, tragedy, friendship, family, romance, humor, horror, and anything else you can possibly think of._

_Once again, I truly appreciate the fact that you're reading this right now._

_Yours truly,_

_Kati (a.k.a ToxinAngel969)_


	8. Used To It

_The first emotion that Kairo felt consume her when she placed her bare feet upon the cold concrete steps was fear. There were so many unfamiliar faces, which gazed down on her repulsively, and an eerie town she didn't even know existed right next to her home. The home that was no longer standing, that is. Her ash-smudged feet was evidence of her whereabouts a few minutes earlier: the ruins of the majestic three story house that used to stand up proudly over the rest of the hills. The house that used to kiss the sunset when the day was done and over with. There wasn't necessarily a sunset anymore, for the sky was a sickly gray; it was as if it were on its knees filled to the brim with remorse, holding in all of its tears and praying for forgiveness._

_But what Kairo had done was unforgivable. And she knew it._

_At this time, the young girl's eyes matched the sky, though there was still a glimmer of hope barely visible behind the somber lifeless shades. She clung onto her dirty nightgown and glanced down on it, noting how it was previously spotless. Now it was smeared with dark ash and blood seeped into it from her torn skin, which the sheriff still hadn't cared to tend to yet. Kairo's angelic face was a sheet of curiosity and despair. Little did she know that it would remain that way for a while._

"_Is this the gal that'cha want me to take in, sheriff?" Said a low, frightening voice. Kairo blinked her eyes several times and regained awareness of the scenario at hand; standing in front of the small town's police station in the middle of a cold autumn day, waiting for the sheriff to clear up where she was going to go for the time being. At first, the inquisitive girl didn't know what was going on; Where were her parents? Why was she here? And why was the sheriff looking at her as if she were a vile creature rather than a little girl? Then it hit her like a speeding bullet, the memories of falling with the oil lamp in hand, burning the house down, and watching her father fade into the background like a shadow. All at once, the tears overwhelmed her. "I sorry, offica! I sorry!" The five year old exclaimed as tears trailed down her pale face. The crisp, shady uniform that the sheriff had on was straightened out by a pair of equally shady hands, and the sheriff looked down on her. He scoffed to himself as she tugged his arm gently. "I sorry offica! I didn't meanta burna down! I tripped, I hadda oil lamp and-" the sheriff carefully looked down the dark street to ensure it was deserted. When he was convinced it was, he brought his gloved hand up and backhanded the girl across the face with as much force he could muster. The girl tumbled over and rolled down the concrete steps, skidding to a halt at the bottom._

_The sheriff turned his attention back to the man with the low, frightening voice. "Are you Jonnithan Diuggards?" he asked, wiping his hands off on his uniform as if ridding of the grimy remnants of a creature he had slain. He inspected the man before him, disregarding the child slowly dragging herself up the steps with a bright red mark along the side of her cheek, surprisingly still conscious.. Jonnithan was obese, looked like he hadn't washed his clothes in months, and clutched in his pudgy hands a beer bottle. "Why, yesser, dat be me, sheriff." he said. At this, the sheriff pulled up the girl by the back of her nightgown carelessly. "This is the girl I was telling you about. The one with them high-and-mighty parents. She's under your guidance now."_

"_But sir," replied the man. "I ain't no foster parent! Can't ya take her to Synthia?"_

"_No, I don't need to send her at the orphanage yet. She's yours for now. Keep her _in line _until I get back. Got it?" The sheriff took a step closer and leaned into the drunkard's face, appearing as intimidating as ever. "Keep her IN LINE. Got it, Jonni?" The repulsive man nodded violently. "Y-yessuh!"_

"_And be sure not to pull anything unbelievably stupid, got it Jonni?"_

"_Yessuh!"_

_The sheriff tossed the girl to the foul man as if she were a rag doll being thrown into the open street. The man grabbed her wrist with his free hand and flipped around on his heel, all the while talking over his shoulder to the sheriff. "Don'tcha worry suh! I'll be sure to keepah in line for yah suh!" he repeated as she dragged Kairo across the empty street._

_Kairo pulled up the bottom of her nightgown up to her knees in order to keep from tripping on it while trying to keep up with the hustling man. "Wait! Wait! Where my daddy? My daddy left before I setta on fiya! Where he? Where he? Is he lookin fo me?" She cried as he hulled her along the street without responding. She looked over her shoulder to get one last glimpse of the man who struck her, the man that was repeatedly called "sheriff". Sure enough, he was still standing in the same place, posed the same way, looking the same direction. The only difference was the demonic smile that was plastered proudly upon his face. _

_That was the last of the town that Kairo ever saw before she was dragged down one of its dark alleyways._

Kairo's eyes shot open. They glued themselves to the ceiling in a desperate effort to rid of the devilish smile still clearly visible from all those years ago, as if engraved upon the back of her eyelids. She would've given anything simply to keep memories such as these in the dark; they were dark memories after all. After a few minutes of vigorously searching for a "happy place", Kairo gave up and squeezed her eyes shut. She turned her head and groaned tiredly, her eyes still closed, and heard her stomach gave a vicious growl. "Uuuughhhhhh, so huuungryyyy…" she said loudly into her pillow, before lazily flopping over on her other side and reminding herself that it was her fault for missing dinner. Like a zombie would, she sat up and slumped over, realizing that she was barely balancing on the corner of her mattress. She rubbed her eyes to try to clear her blurry vision, and opened them up to see a figure standing in the doorway holding something in their hand.

"GAAAAH!" Kairo screeched in surprise, only to end up losing balance and tumbling backward. Her back slammed against the hardwood floor, her arms sprawled out from her sides, and her legs were still awkwardly perched upward like the letter V which was visible to whoever spooked her awake. She couldn't help but to sigh with relief when a bulbous, glass dome peeked over the mattress and shot her a keen look.

"You okay?" Benson said, placing his clipboard down on the bed and reaching his hand down to help her up.

Kairo's expression was bland.

"You scared the crap outta me."

"Sorry. I just thought I heard you talking to someone in here." Kairo took his hand and he pulled her up on the bed with ease. _Why do I feel like Skips? _Benson asked himself as he grabbed his clipboard and hopped off the bed. Either he managed to miraculously gain a bit of muscle in the past week, or Kairo was just light. _I guess Rigby was right, _he thought. _She _is _lighter than a feather. _Kairo yawned and stretched, slightly wincing and regaining her previous position on the bed. "Well, I was talking to myself probably."

"Talking to yourself?""Yah. I'm too lazy to listen to my conscious, I have to tell myself to do things. I don't know why, it just works that way."

Benson chuckled. "Um, okay? What was you're conscious telling you to do? Get your lazy butt out of bed? Because if I were you, I'd just go with your conscious on that one."

"What? Why?"

"It's already ten o' clock."

Kairo glanced toward the window, which, even though she hadn't remembered doing so, had been closed up and the curtains pulled over it. Sunlight seeped through the golden blinds, casting upon the room a dim yellow glow. "How did that happen?" she asked herself as she flung off of her bed and picked up the alarm clock. "Normally I wake up around seven. Why would I-"

Her stomach growled again. Kairo's face turned red and she slammed down the alarm clock. "Case solved."

Benson sighed even though he was bearing an ear-to-ear smile. "You fell asleep before you could come down and get dinner. So you're stomach's paying for it.""Well, better hunger pains than Charlie Horses, right?"

Benson furrowed his brow. "What's that?""A Charlie Horse. You know, that cramp you get in your foot and you jump up and down and squeal because it hurts so friggin bad?"

Kairo concluded by lifting her foot up, careful not to let the pants slide down her leg to reveal her wounds, and putting on her best 'ouch-my-foot-hurts-so-friggin-bad' face. Benson put his hands over his head. "Hey, I know what a Charlie Horse is."

"Then why'd you ask what it was?""Because," Benson said, heading for the door and peeking over his shoulder with a sly grin. "I couldn't hear you over your stomach. C'mon, let's go get some breakfast. Everyone else has already eaten."

Kairo's ears twitched and she smiled back awkwardly before ensuring that none of the sleeves rolled up in her sleep and following Benson.

"Hey Benson, who's the new chick everyone's talking about?" said a gravelly deep voice by the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, which Kairo had refused to go down without gripping the rail with both hands the whole way. Benson stepped aside as Kairo reached the last step, shooting her an inquisitive look as she slowly put her foot on the ground and finally released the rail from her death grip. She looked up and saw a small, pudgy green man standing with a transparent cheerful ghost. His brown mullet had pieces of grass protruding from it here and there, along with grass stains on his knees and elbows. "Muscleman," said Benson calmly. "This is Kairo." Muscleman took one look at her and started guffawing boisterously. "Dude, you're short bro!" Kairo clenched her fists, but didn't have time to respond by the time the ghost swiveled in front of him. "I'm High Five Ghost! But you can call me Fives. What's your name again?"

"Uhh…" Kairo stuttered, looking down on the ground. "Kairo.""Whoa! Is that Egyptian?" He asked enthusiastically.

Kairo could see that he wasn't meaning to be a jerk, like Rigby had done the last time, so she shook her head. "No, a lot of people think I am though. Actually, on my birth certificate, it says Katra."

High Five Ghost floated a little ways back and looked at her funny. "Wait, if Katra is your real name, then why are you called 'Kairo'?" Her ears twitched uneasily as she shifted her feet. Benson saw her eyes dart from a speck on the floor to the far side of the living room repetitively. "Well…all of my foster parents and stepparents didn't really care how they pronounced my name…so everyone just followed their example, and before I knew it," she shrugged. "I was known as Kairo."

"Why would your foster and step parents not care?" Muscleman asked as he crossed his arms and glanced at Fives. "They sound like crappy parents if you ask me.""Oh, you have _no idea!_" Kairo broke into a little chuckle and it immediately faded into a serious face, all the while Benson's eyes were on her.

Her stomach growled for the third time that morning. "Dang, I'm just neglecting you, huh?" She said, looking down on her stomach. Benson, keeping in mind how she acted when she was talking about her parents, took a step forward. "Yeah, we'd better get you fed. The kitchen is just in here," he said, walking towards the kitchen table and hearing Kairo following up behind him. He pulled out a chair for her and she took it with a barely audible thank you. He strolled over to the cabinet with all of the cereal in it. "So, it sounds like you're pretty hungry. Cereal?" he asked. Kairo squeezed the edge of the table. "Oh yeah, that's fine." Benson took a bowl down. "Come to think of it, you sound like you haven't eaten in a while," he pulled the milk out of the fridge. "What was the last thing you ate? Yesterday's lunch, I take it? No wonder you're hungry."Kairo twiddled her thumbs and anyone could visibly tell that she was biting down on her bottom lip. "Well…actually, Benson…"Benson did a double take at Kairo, for she looked as if here eyes were becoming wetter by the second. "I…haven't eaten in…about three days." Benson stopped in his tracks, nearly dropping the milk carton. He turned around and was about to ask her why the heck she hadn't eaten in that long when Mordecai barged through the door accompanied by his raccoon friend. Rigby barged in and jumped up on the table, plopping down in front of Kairo deliberately. "Good afternoon, Sleeping Beauty." he said. "Did you get a good catnap?"

"Knock it off Rigby," Mordecai said, walking in wearing a casual black shirt and black jeans, with blue sneakers barely visible behind them. Rigby stood up and pointed at his sweatshirt, which said in big, bold letters: I DON'T CARE. "Read it and weep, Morde-cry." Benson was still staring at Kairo. "Hey look!" Rigby said, plucking off his "I'm Eggcellent" hat and propping it on the cat girl's head. "Ha! Look! 'Cat in the Hat!"

"Rigby!" Mordecai scolded.

The raccoon yanked the hat off and placed it on his own head. "Alright, alright, sheesh. Why the heck did we come back here anyway? It's a weekend! I thought you wanted to hang out with Margaret!" Mordecai grabbed Kairo and pulled her out of her seat. "C'mon dude! The girls really wanna meet you!""Wha-? Girls?" Kairo sputtered as they headed to the door. "Yeah! Margaret and Eileen! They said they're gonna take you around the city and show you everything! Is that okay Benson?" Benson blinked a few times, reminding himself that it was impossible to have a discussion with Kairo if those two were there. And, hell, they were already heading out the door. Benson sighed and rubbed his temples. "Fine, just…fine." He was going to say something to them, about not getting into trouble or destroying park property, but right now he couldn't focus on one thing. Mordecai let out a loud "OOOH!" and Rigby huffed. "C'mon! Let's go!"

The three ran to their skateboards, since their golf cart privileges had been revoked not a week earlier. "You know how to ride a skateboard Kairo?" Mordecai asked as he tossed her a blue one. She caught it skillfully and smiled. "I may not be a pro, but I have a few cool tricks up my sleeve!" She saw Rigby hop onto his hilariously tiny skateboard. "Alright, what are we waiting for?" He propelled off with his foot, and the two followed. Benson ran out front the fastest he could without causing the cut on his foot to hurt too bad. "Hey!" he called after them. They skidded and flipped around. "Yeah dude?" Kairo asked.

"Just…be sure that they feed you okay?" He said. Kairo put her thumbs up.

"And don't get hurt or anything! All the park needs is another hospital bill Rigby!" Rigby turned around, still riding on his skateboard, and clutched his 'I'm Eggcellent' hat with pride before flipping back around and going faster down the sidewalk. Benson groaned to himself. "And that includes you too, Kairo!" the cat girl put her hands around her mouth and shouted as she faded into the distance. He took a quick intake of breath and was very shocked at her response.

"I'm used to it!"

_Author's Note: Hey guys. Sorry for such a late submission, but my life is going down the toilet right now, so from here on out until testing is over, it's going to be very difficult to find time to finish and submit chapters. Just a heads-up. Also, lord knows how rushed I was to finish this, therefore I was unable to review this entire chapter before submitting (oh no, I did the one thing a writer should never do! Oh well; at least I got half through it) I hope you like this chapter, the next one should be up in the next week or so. Byebye! _


	9. Chosen

By the time Kairo and the others finally arrived at the coffee shop, her vision was impaired with fuzzy yellow lights that wove their way to and fro before her, causing her to stumble more than usual. After realizing that it was from the hunger as well as her physical condition that was left untreated, she vigorously shook her head and attempted to remain focused on the task at hand, which was to meet the "girls" that Mordecai had been jabbering about as they were riding on the skateboards to the coffee shop. But as the trio stepped into the delicious smelling shop, all that Kairo cared about was food, which was actually quite understandable considering the fact that she couldn't recall the last time she had eaten anything. Rigby scurried ahead on all fours after setting his skateboard down against the table they were going to sit at and perched back up on his hind legs to jump up onto the countertop.

"Hey Margaret! The cat chick's here!" he cried loudly, despite the few customers sitting around him. Kairo couldn't help but notice that after last night, he hadn't treated her as rudely as he normally would have. She eyed him peculiarly. Perhaps that's what these animals did? They would be rude to you at first until they warm up to you? Or had someone talked to him about it? Kairo doubted this, but just as she was about to ask him about it, two figures walked out from behind the counter, both of which were obscured by the yellow lights that kept on coming back. She rubbed her eyes furiously once more and looked up to see two other mammals that immediately reminded her of Mordecai and Rigby.

The first one that her eyes met with was a short mole, with a small ponytail on the side of her head that had a small poof before it straightened out and blended with the rest of her ashy brown hair. She was bespectacled and, despite the awry uniform, was actually quite adorable, maybe Rigby liked this girl (which she learned later on wasn't at all true). Her nametag read, "Eileen". Kairo moved her eyes up to the tall figure, much taller than her, and paused.

It wasn't how the red robin's beautiful beak was turned into a scowl, or how her luscious feathers glistened on her arms as they crossed over her chest. It wasn't the long black legs that seemed to straighten themselves out after seeing Kairo. And it wasn't the shimmering beady eyes that were glaring down on her with remorse. No, it wasn't any of these things _alone_. It was what it created altogether; a breathtakingly beautiful red robin that was looking down on a cat/human hybrid as if she were a pest. Not necessarily the best way to make a first impression, Kairo thought.

Eileen waved her small hand. "Hi! I'm Eileen! What's your name?" _For being friends with _that _robin, _Kairo thought to herself, _she's quite nice._

"I-I'm Kairo," she replied shyly, twirling her hair around in her fingers.

The red robin, who had the nametag "Margaret" on her uniform, didn't even bother to introduce herself before taking a step forward and speaking.

"Oh, so you're from Egypt then?" she asked snidely.

"Um, n-not exactly, you see," Kairo stammered, "It's a bit of a misconception. That's not rea-"

"No, no, I understand. Nickname, right?" Margaret interrupted, leaning back against the countertop nonchalantly.

"Yeah," Kairo's hopes of getting along with this girl went up a smidgen higher. Maybe she was just like Rigby? Maybe she would be rude at first and then be kind?

Unfortunately, this wasn't necessarily the case, as Kairo would learn further on into the future.

Mordecai's walkie-talkie went off, a blurry voice emitting from the speaker.

"Mordedai, Rigby. Pick up, we need you guys over here to finish cleaning out the attic." It was Benson's voice.

Rigby plucked the walkie-talkie out of Mordecai's hands just as he was about to answer it. "Yeah, yeah, we'll be there in a jiffy."

Benson laughed out loud, and Kairo immediately reprimanded herself after thinking how cute she found it. "Rigby, _you're _jiffy and _my _jiffy are two completely different things. So I want you over here _now, _not in an hour. Got it?"

Rigby groaned. "Aww, what!" he cried into the speaker. "But it'll take forever to clean up now that we moved all those boxes out there! Besides, it's way too crowded for me and Mordecai to clean it out-" Mordecai seized the opportunity and took it back in the midst of his complaining.

"Okay Benson, we're out the door now," Mordecai lied calmly into the speaker before turning his attention back to Margaret. "Um, hey Margaret, i-if you're not too busy with the shop and all, do you think you could, you know, hang with Kairo for a little bit?"

Margaret sighed. "Well, if you have to go so soon, then I guess so."

Eileen spoke up enthusiastically. "Oh, I know what we could do! We could take her shopping, show her around the city! Wouldn't that be fun, Margaret?" Eileen looked up at her friend with glistening eyes. Margaret immediately denied. "No, we can't just leave the coffee shop hanging, we'll get fired."

"So we'll get Anyta and Devon to cover our shift!"

"They won't do that,"

"I have my ways to get them to do it," Eileen replied, sounding a little scary for a second. By now, Mordecai and Rigby were long gone, skateboarding back to the house to finish the task they never finished. Finally, after a few more minutes of arguing, the red robin let out an agitated cry. "All right! Go get Anyta & Devon, and we'll shop, or whatever, okay!" Margaret stormed to the back of the shop to change out of her uniform. Eileen watched to make sure that she was gone, and she turned back to Kairo, struggling to try to stay on her two feet.

"Sorry if Margaret's a little angry today. She's not angry at _you, _she just had a pretty distressing day, her boyfriend broke up with her this morning."

Kairo simply nodded lightly, feeling the throbbing in her head intensify with each passing minute she disregarded her hunger, which she tried to ignore until they were through with shopping.

* * *

><p>By the time Mordecai and Rigby burst through the door, Benson had already finished clearing out half the attic. Before they arrived, however, he and Skips came across a most peculiar object aside from the Portal Panel. Benson was in the midst of digging around aggressively, trying to reach over the boxes all of the crumbled newspapers that tumbled out of the box his two employees sloppily threw into the attic, when he came across it. His metal hands bumped against the cool, smooth surface, and couldn't resist the urge to grab it. He picked it up and inspected the large sky blue orb, noting how he couldn't see his reflection in it, but a jumble of words and pictures that looked as if they were his own, childhood photos, things he'd said in the past that stuck with him for life.<p>

"Hey Skips?" he said, turning around just as the yeti had finished placing a box up on the shelf. "Yeah?" He asked, turning around slowly and wiping the dust of on an old cloth he took from his pocket.

Benson held the object up in front of him for the both of them to see. "What's this?"

Skips' eyes were fixated on it as if it were a bomb. "Set it down slowly," he said calmly, even though his expression was just the opposite. Benson did as he was told, carefully placing it down in front of him and cautiously took a step back. Skips waited a second before taking it into his own hands. "This…" His voice seemed perturbed.

"What is it, Skips?"

"It's…something that has been granted the same power as that of the Portal Panel. It has the ability to show one's past memories. The same energy that is used in the Portal Panel also resides within this orb, showing only the memories that have scarred one's past."

Benson, though he didn't exactly know why, immediately thought of Kairo.

"How does it work?"

"Trust me Benson," Skips said, slipping it onto the highest shelf in the attic. "There will be a time that you will use it."

Benson stammered. "W-Well, I didn't say I-"

"Regardless of whether you want to or not, Benson, the energy knows what it's doing. When the time comes, it'll find you, and you'll know exactly how to use it."

Benson bit his bottom lip and uneasily looked around the attic.

"B-but…"

He paused in uncertainty.

"Why me? Do _I _have to be the one to use it?"

Skips smiled at his boss. "The energy knows what it's doing. It chose you, Benson."

"What?"

"It chose you to watch her, to keep her safe. That's why you're feeling this way, like you're concerned for her but you're not exactly why. It chose _you_."

As Skips walked down the stairs to get a drink of water, Benson stood rooted to the spot, still thinking about what Skips had said. _Chosen? To do what? Be a daddy figure? He recalled her saying she lived with a foster mom... _

"Benson?" A voice said behind him.

He flipped around, and thought he couldn't necessarily explain why, was disappointed that it was Mordecai instead of Kairo.

And after confirming that he had felt it, and knowing that he didn't know what was happening, he was determined to stay as far away from Kairo as possible.

But the energy knew better, knew much more than Benson or Skips or any mortal, for its knowledge was beyond their comprehension. It knew everything about the two there was to know.

Including that Kairo feared to have her secret revealed.

* * *

><p><em>Firstly, I'm SO sorry for such a late post as well as a short chapter, but it's testing week and my time is from here on out restricted until further notice. Don't worry, I'm sure you can cope with a cliffhanger for a few days at the least. Love you all!<em>


	10. Bliss

When Eileen had first mentioned "shopping", Kairo didn't really know what to expect; after all, she didn't have a whole lot of time to do so back at the place she was forced to call home, in the human world. She did know, however, that Amelia did this "shopping" frequently, often telling Kairo to provide an excuse for her when her mother asked where she'd gone.

But after going shopping with these two mammals, it made shopping seem like the most hectic and overrated task in the world.

In the midst of trying on numerous garish outfits, Kairo couldn't help but wonder how the heck Amelia could do this for hours on end, nonstop, trying on scratchy skinny jeans and quirky, gaudy accessories that brought unwanted attention to herself. But while these girls stated that the time flew by so fast, it seemed like an eternity to Kairo. She made sure to only pick the apparel that didn't reveal her untreated wounds, which were growing worse by the minute. Countless times she nearly blacked out as the fatigue and hunger started to worsen, but managed to squeeze into the tiny clothes that Eileen stated "fit her personality". She didn't quite agree with the look, but they ended up buying a ton of tight clothing nonetheless.

It wasn't long until Eileen suggested that they should leave because the mall was getting crowded.

"Come on, Margaret, I really think we should go. Besides, I think we have plenty of stuff for Kairo to wear."

"I agree," Kairo said, her hoarse voice barely audible.

Margaret readjusted her purse that was slung over her shoulder before replying with a snotty tone. "Good for Kairo. Look, I just want to get one more thing," she snarled the same excuse that she said ten minutes before. Eileen sighed and looked back at Kairo, who was struggling to keep up with the countless shopping bags in her hand.

"Well…" Eileen started, a sly look appearing on her face as she thought. "Kairo looks pretty tired. How about she and I head on back to the park while you finish up, okay?"

Margaret sighed.

"I think she can wait for a little longer."

"You said that nearly ten minutes ago Margaret!" Eileen whimpered.

Finally, the annoyed red robin sighed. "Whatever. Just go on ahead. I'll meet you back at the coffee shop when I'm done, I guess."

Eileen nodded. "Right. Let's go, Kairo, I'll walk with you back to the house!" Kairo shrugged and followed as the mole headed towards the checkout stand.

Margaret peered over her shoulder, her focus immediately on the hybrid. She couldn't help but, after making sure they were out of hearing range, sneer in her direction.

Margaret hated this new girl with a burning passion, one that couldn't be extinguished for all the shopping time in the world. She saw the way that Mordecai looked at her in the coffee shop before she even stepped out of behind the counter. It was a look that Margaret was used to from him when she was around the blue jay. She did wonder, however, if the cat-girl noticed that Mordecai looked at her so longingly, helplessly locked in a trance that couldn't be described by anyone but the one wearing such expression. She hoped that she hadn't, though.

As much as she knew she shouldn't, Margaret was willing to use this to her advantage.

* * *

><p>Sigh. Stand. Pace. Sit. Sigh. Stand. Pace. Sit.<p>

This was pretty much what Benson did during the long hours that Kairo was shopping at the mall. He occupied the living room, straining his thoughts to the extent at which his dome began to ache. One question had rattled on the inside of his dome ever since the yeti departed: What did Skips' words mean? Surely they meant something important, considering the fact that, well, they were coming from the wisest being in the park, possibly in the entire city. But what the heck did it mean?

Chosen? It made it sound like a video game, or some fairy tale novel. How in the world had Skips known about the way he felt for Kairo? Was it that obvious? Do the others in the park now as well? While this seemed like a stupid question, since the yeti could possibly know everything there is to know in the universe, it didn't make the least bit of sense to the gumball machine. All of what had happened in the past week made him want to curl up on the couch and fall asleep, never having to wake up again. As he paced, he disregarded the clutches that he was supposed to be using and propped them up on the side of the couch. He didn't want to have to walk around with them, much less have to take disgusting medication to relieve the pain on his foot. He would endure it.

All in all, he hated it.

He hated the slyness in Skips' voice when he said those words only hours ago. He hated being told that he had to wear _human _clothing whenever Mr. Maellard came just because of some accident that occurred during a godforsaken rainstorm. He hated being told that he was _chosen. _

And, as strange as it seemed, he hated not knowing where Kairo was.

There was a soft knock on the door, and Benson felt his gumballs rattle noisily inside of his dome as he bolted towards it without hesitation. He felt something inside of him relax as he swung open the front door to see Eileen and Kairo standing before him.

"Hi Benson!" Eileen said happily with the soothing calm voice that Rigby stated was "the most annoying sound in the world". The both of them clutched dozens of shopping bags, some hanging from their shoulders and wrists filled to the brim with clothing and shoes and tacky fittings.

"Hey girls." Benson said calmly, trying his best to conceal the relief in his voice as he stepped aside and gestured for the both of them to come in. He could see her relief as Kairo set the bags on the plush couch and stretched slowly. "Maaan, I'm tiiiiired." she yawned. Eileen laughed as Kairo allowed herself to fall face first into the couch cushions and lay there until she was comfortable. The mole turned her attention back to the gumball machine.

"Benson, do you know if Rigby's here?"

Rigby's employer couldn't help but smile down at the Rigby-obsessed mole before responding.

"Yeah, he's up in the attic. Maybe he could use some help." Eileen's smirk widened as Benson pointed up the stairs, gesturing for her to go, and she took off running.

Now Benson was left alone in the room with the girl who came out of the television screen.

An odd and uncomfortable quietness barricaded the two, Kairo perched oddly on the couch and the machine leaning against the wall with a peculiar look spread across his face.

"Soo…" Benson said, breaking the awkward silence between them.

"How did you like going shopping?"

Kairo flipped over and faced him, her chin resting on the top of the couch. "Well, it was fine. I mean, you know…"

Benson saw the detest in Kairo's eyes.

"…You didn't really like it, did you?"

Kairo looked up at him with wide eyes. "No. No I did not. _But_…" she said, turning around and burrowing through one of her countless shopping bags before yanking out a music disc.

"Check it, dude! I got so many different music tracks!" she looked into her bag and shuffled through it once more. "And a CD player, 'cuz I'm too lazy to fuss with the radio station and signal crap," Benson chuckled at her comment, and she shot him a quirky smirk before going on. "And best of all…"

Kairo yanked out a handful sketchpads. "BAM! Look, man, I think I got six of 'em!" She flew off of the couch and ran to Benson. "See, I got an extra large one, one that I can use charcoal on, a special watercolor one, and-"

An unexpected wave of drowsiness and pain washed over Kairo, and her vision went blurry, Benson's concerned face blurring beyond recognition. She saw his lips move, saying her name most likely, but he was no longer audible; a shrill, high-pitched ringing made her head throb. "And…and…" she muttered unconsciously, noting how she couldn't hear her own voice, and saw that the world was tipping. She didn't realize that she'd passed out until she came to and felt a set of arms holding onto her waist. The high-pitched ringing was slowly fading away, and she heard a familiar voice calling out her name worriedly.

"Kairo! Kairo, come on, are you okay? What's wrong?" blinking the blurriness from her eyes, she saw the gumball machine's features become clearer.

"Whaa-?" she started, taking her hand and rubbing her aching forehead. "It's alright dude," she reassured him half-heartedly. "Just…a dizzy spell and a bad headache."

But she knew all too well that it wasn't necessarily the headache that throbbed painfully.

Benson slowly and cautiously helped her stand back up, taking her small hand in his before she let out an exhausted sigh and allowed herself to collapse against him. Not expecting this, he didn't do anything as she rested her head on his shoulder and clenched her eyes shut, tears threatening to seep through. It was too late though, for they already began to spill out and run down her warm cheeks, not visible to whom she considered her only friend. Careful as to not scare her, knowing how jumpy she could be, he hesitantly raised his hands and rubbed the small of her back.

"H-hey," he began, embracing her in an unexpected hug. "Are you okay?"

Kairo allowed the tears to spill freely now, but there appeared to be no more. "Yeah…" she barely whispered, the evidence of her crying clear in her cracking voice.

Benson didn't know what to say. "…I don't believe you…" he said. "Are you sick?"

"No,"

"…Tired?"

"No,"

"When did you say was the last time you ate?"

"…can't remember all that much…"

Kairo opened her eyes and realized that Benson was not only holding her up, but also hugging her. Holding her. Something nobody bothered to do in years. The lump in her throat intensified, and the pain from her head, and her wounds, and her depression, all seemed to go numb. She itched to cling onto him, to hold him as he was doing to her, to never have to release him. The very idea of being loved, held, even looked at the way he did to her, made everything hurt less. It was comforting in a way that Kairo couldn't describe. She still didn't know what to do - hug him or pull away, so she merely let her arms dangle at her sides with Benson's arms around her. Bliss.

When Kairo turned her head to the doorway, she was not only questioning how long they've been "hugging", but also how long the bulky yeti had been standing there watching them do it. As she caught his eye, a mix of delight and wonder gleaming through them, he skipped into the room.

"Is Kairo okay? I heard Benson from all the way upstairs." he started before fully emerging into the room. Benson released her and flipped around. "What? Oh, um…she fainted."

Skips glanced in Kairo's direction, and for some reason, Kairo felt as if he wasn't wondering about her condition, but how she reacted to being hugged. After a few seconds, Skips turned back to Benson, a casual tone of voice escaping his lips.

"Don't worry; it's common for people who travel through the Portal to have dizzy spells as well as other side affects." Skips put on a sly grin. "And boss, I don't think that the doc gave you crutches so that you can leave them laying around." Benson bit the bottom of his lip angrily as the yeti's smile widened. "Yeah, yeah…" he replied, rolling his eyes.

"And as for you," he said, looking at the hybrid intently. "You're feeling a little queasy, I take it?"

Kairo's stomach churned. Her face flushed red. "Um…sorta?"

Skips chuckled. "Get some food in you, it'll make you feel better. But before you do, I need to-"

Before Skips could finish his sentence, Rigby could be heard tumbling down the stairs with a loud shriek. Kairo shuddered.

"Get away from me!" Rigby shouted as he picked himself up off the ground and faced the mole coming down the stairs along with the blue jay. Mordecai groaned. "Come on, Rigby, grow up! She's ordering us pizza for Pete's sake. The least you could do is show a little respect!" With that, Mordecai turned to Kairo and wave his feathered hand. "H-Hi Kairo," he put his hands together oddly and faced his boss.

"Hehe…heyy, Benson…." he said nervously, using a tone that was often used before explaining how they messed something up yet again.

"What is it?" He said sternly.

"Hm? Oh, it's nothing big, it's just…Eileen _was _going to order some pizza, since we're all hungry and we haven't done the shopping yet and all, so is it okay if, you know…we buy some pizza?"

Benson sighed, and out of the corner of his eye, saw that Kairo leaned herself up against the wall, her face pale as High Five Ghosts' and dark bags under her eyes. Gradually she looked sick.

"Benson?" Mordecai asked. Benson snapped his attention back to the employee that was taller than him. "Ugh, fine, just…if you're ordering, then make sure there's enough for everyone, alright?"

"Gotcha." Mordecai responded instantly, the shy mole handing him her small phone.

"Kairo," Skips said, catching Kairo's attention again. He nodded his head toward the front door, gesturing that they both step outside. "I have to talk to you for a sec," he said, heading toward the door and opening it for her. Kairo glanced back over her shoulder nervously, seeing an occupied blue jay and mole, a raccoon making obnoxious faces at her, and the face that she couldn't get enough of.

The face that read clearly that he worried for her. Benson nodded and smiled with reassurance; he knew Skips, and he was probably going to talk to her about the Portals or something along those lines. Kairo felt much more relaxed after he smiled at her, and she shot on of her odd grins back to him. She turned back around and dizzily stumbled our the front door, not knowing what to expect anymore.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Hey guys! Sorry for a late update and such a short chapter. Just in case there's an confusion, only Mordecai and Rigby are the ones actually listening to Maellard's instruction (of course Muscle Man and the others who normally wear clothing are too lol) I won't be uploading as often. I'll try to update chapters to all of my fan fictions every Sunday (I have a Teen Titans fanfic called "The Dark" and another regular show fanfic called "Falling For Nothing"). Thank you for those who have reviewed, and if you haven't, I'd appreciate it if you left some feedback. Thanks! : ) <em>


	11. Pizza Zombies Pt1

The park was serene, and for the first time in ages, there were no evil, otherworldly, or random catastrophes or phenomena present to disturb the atmosphere. It was no longer a bustling, crowded setting - this surely would have disappointed Mr. Maellard - because all of the hectic excitement and movement had finally died down. The late afternoon sky was a blotchy blue-gray, consisting of blotted out sunlight behind the exhausted storm clouds that were still trying to decide whether or not to unleash the heavy rain and hail onto the land below.

The house gave off a comforting, homey feeling to the hybrid as she followed the enormous yeti outside. Truth be told, she looked like the clouds that hovered directly over her head: rugged, grim, lonely, and uncertain. However, despite her numerous untreated injuries that were most likely infected by now, she felt very much like the park she resided in: calm, peaceful, and unexpectedly happy. Kairo believed that it wasn't the park that made her feel so lighthearted, so content, it was the person that she was with. Well, technically, the _yeti _she was with, but this was beside the point. Kairo felt and unexplainable eagerness to learn more about him, to interact more with him, to be around him simply to feel away from the world. Not, it wasn't necessarily in the name of love that drove her to want this; one could very well say that it was in the name of curiosity.

If only that dumb old saying about curiosity killing the cat wasn't in the way.

Skips gently sat down on the second to bottom step of the staircase that led up to the house, and Kairo plopped down right next to him, subconsciously flicking her tail back and forth with delight. Skips noticed this in a flash.

"Happy to be relaxing for a while, huh?" he politely questioned.

Kairo's maroon ears twitched. "Hm? Oh, yeah, uh, sort of. Feels good to just sit down…" _Even though it hurts my cuts and bruises like a motherf-_

Skips interrupted her thoughts.

"You look really tired. You should get some more sleep, you know. Hopefully, now that you're part cat, you'll be sleeping more."

"What does the cat part have to do with anything?" Kairo lifted an eyebrow.

"Cats sleep most of the day."

"Oh. Duh."

Skips chuckled. "You also look very, uh…what's that word I'm looking for?" he rested his bulky chin on his palm. He knew she would take the bait. Before thinking anything through, Kairo blurted out.

"Malnourished?" she said with a voice full of hope and optimism, happy to be of help to a friend, before she realized that Skips had tricked her into saying something she otherwise would've kept to herself. Skips couldn't help letting a little bit of laughter escape from under his breath. "Precisely," he chuckled. "Malnourised. The 17-year old hybrid let out a high-pitched groan and buried her hands into her face. "Ugh! Gosh, I'm such a retard! It's just…you're so easy to talk to, you know? Promise you won't tell?" she spoke with a scratchy voice.

"You can tell me anything, you know." he responded, pulling something out of his back pocket and handing it to her. "Here, this should hold you over until the pizza comes. Not a lot of nutritional value, but it should make you feel better." Kairo took the crackers gratefully and greedily tore open the plastic wrapper. "I noticed…" he began to speak as Kairo stuffed an entire cracker into her mouth hungrily. "that after you got all excited over the music you got from the mall, you used up a lot of your energy, causing you to feel drained and exhausted and resulting in you collapsing into Benson." For a second, Kairo didn't know what the heck he was talking about. Then she realized that he was referring to what happened five minutes prior to coming outside with him, and she eyed him with awe and curiosity.

"You fbwere fwatsching me?" she asked with a mouthful of crackers. Skips shook his head no.

"The Portal was. That's what it does, it has to make sure its efforts to keep you safe weren't in vain. You are the one it chose to be sent here for that reason, and if there's anything that threatens your safety or wellbeing, you've got to tell one of us." he sounded much like a reprimanding father, something that Kairo missed with all her heart, but wasn't willing to give in to. In other words, there was no way that anyone at the park (aside from Pops, of course) would know about the gashes that resided just beneath the clothes she wore.

"Anyway," Skips refocused the conversation, snapping Kairo out of her temporary trance. But Kairo interrupted him.

"Whoa, wait. You said that the _Portal _was watching me. So how do _you _know about it?"

Skips grunted. "Well, not only was I standing there watching you," Kairo slapped her hand over her face. "But every Immortal has a connection with the Portal, and knows what comes through, where it shows up…" _Why the chosen ones are sent…_Skips added in his mind, not saying it aloud because he knew that Kairo would most likely freak. "So that means, all of the Immortals in both this realm and in your realm know you are here."

"There's Immortal people in my realm."

"They're sent to every realm by the Portals. One way or another, chosen ones come in contact with them. You have most likely already met one of them in your realm. Do you…happen to remember anyone from Earth that was easy to talk to, like me?"

Kairo racked her brain for anybody that didn't threaten to kill her for talking to them alone. "Um…there was this one dude…Gourdon. Can't really remember his last name. He was really nice to me, and protected me from all of the…bad things that were in my realm." she concluded quietly.

"Having met him is probably why you are here in the first place; without him, the Portal Panel may have never found its way out of the dusty corners of the attic. See, everything the Immortals see, the Portal see. Everything that the Portal see, the Immortals see. That's how it works. Anyway," he tried again to refocus their discussion for the second time. "Usually, one only loses energy so rapidly after not eating for a long period of time, say… three, four days."

Kairo began to wring her hands, her eyes jolting from one place to another. Slowly the puzzle was beginning to fit together. "Um…hey Skips?"

"Yeah?"

"About the Portal thing… you said that whatever the Portals see, the Immortals see, so whatever the Portals happen to see is also seen by the Immortals…what-what exactly can the Portal see?"

The yeti looked down at her with solemn eyes. "The Portal sees _everything, _Kairo."

Kairo felt a shiver go down her spine and an uncomfortable knot in her stomach formed. Everything that had happened to her in the past, maybe even her thoughts, had been broadcasted to a bunch of Immortal dudes she didn't even know through the Portal. This was all but reassuring. A loud honk came from in front of the house, and they turned their heads to see a bright blue pizza delivery truck desperately trying to get their attention. Skips stood up abruptly and pulled Kairo up with ease. Together, they walked inside to fetch the money. Before they were all the way inside the house, Skips turned around and eyed the truck suspiciously, but shaking it off and not thinking much of the unsettling wave that overcame him.

Coming out about 30 seconds later, alone, to find that the pizza truck had been abandoned with its engine still running, was enough to make Kairo feel frightened. As she stood dumbfounded in front of the vehicle and fiddled with the twenty dollars in her hand, she heard someone come out of the house and spun her head around.

"Did ya pay yet?" Benson asked, closing the door behind him and leaning up against the wall of the house, crossing his arms as he did so.

"Well, I would, if there was someone to pay." she said calmly. A quizzical expression found its way to Benson's face. "What?"

"Look, dude." Kairo stepped aside and pointed at the empty driver seat of the pizza delivery truck. "They totally left. And they left the engine on, too. What is up with people these days?" Kairo stuck her head inside the truck, her rear being the only . "There isn't even any pizza in here, man! I bet they took it and-" something came up behind her and kicked her right below her tail, sending her lurching forward into the car. She let out a screech.

"Really, Muscleman!?" Benson said angrily after seeing that he had literally kicked her butt and sent her flying into the vehicle. Muscleman let out a hoot. "What now, Shorty!? I just kicked your butt into a pizza truck! You know who else likes to kick Shorty's butts into pizza trucks?" He asked the hovering ghost beside him. "MY MOM!"

"MUSCLEMAN!" Benson shouted again to get his attention, feeling his face grow red. Muscleman turned around and smiled. "Oh hey Benson! I didn't know you were out here!"

"Clearly," he muttered, before taking it upon himself to walk to the other side of the pizza delivery truck and opening the passenger side door. She was sent tumbling out and was sprawled out awkwardly on the ground. She looked up and saw Benson staring down at her with an ear-to-ear smile (well, if he _had _ears, it would be one). "My bottom," She put on a pouty face that randomly changed into a bland one. "I'm hungry." she stated plainly.

"Well, nice to meet you Hungry, I'm Benson." he said as he gently pulled herself up from the ground and plucked a twig that was protruding from her hair. "Let's go fix you up something that'll hold you over while Muscleman finds those pizza delivery guys and brings them here so we could show them a piece of our mind," he said venomously, looking over his left shoulder to glare at his pudgy employee. He was satisfied when he heard a low, depressed groan, and turned around contently.

-X-

Muscleman slammed the door to the truck, probably cracking its window, and snorted with loathing for his gumball machine boss. "Man, why do _we _always get stuck with having to do the dirty work?" he huffed before turning to his friend. "Hey Fives, do you think you can fly up above the park to see where those losers went?" High Five Ghost replied with a thumbs-up and skyrocketed into the air; if he were still human, he wouldn't even have broken a sweat.

HFG flew up as high as the storm would allow him to go, which, in truth, wasn't really that high at all. He didn't need to worry about sunlight obscuring his vision because for one, it went right through him, and two, by this time the sun was completely hidden behind the storm clouds that began to grumble and groan faintly. Squinting the holes in his head that were supposed to be eyes, he scanned the park, looking for people with the same colored uniform that was on the car - Cheezer's Pizza Delivery Service. When he thought he saw the guys he was looking for, he hovered just above them to see them more clearly. But when he saw that they were not necessarily what he was expecting, he gasped. "Oh no, not again!" he exclaimed before flying back down to his friend.

"Did you find 'em, bro?" Muscleman questioned. High Five Ghost shook his head. "Well, yes, but…" he leaned in and whispered something into Muscleman's ear.

Muscleman's face went pale and expressionless. "Oh no, bro…" he said, before running as fast as he could into the house to spread the dreadful news.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Okay, I know. Late post. You have the right to scold me. I'm sorry it's so late (and it's so short), but what did I tell ya? Anyway, I hate to go Judith on you (it's sort of a downer to hear XD haha Where The Wild Things Are lame joke not funny whatever) but don't be expecting an update any time soon. <em>**But, **_**you have my word that I will not stop this story. Because I hate when people write a well-rounded story and just stop in the middle of it. It bugs me. So I'm not gonna pull that on you guys.**_

_See ya l8r Angel H8rs_

_~Toxin_


	12. Pizza Zombies Pt2

Kairo was, more or less, satisfied.

In her small pale hands she held a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, neatly wrapped in a paper towel that was almost consumed with said food. Kairo temporarily stopped munching on her sandwich and looked around. There were friends surrounding her, something that she'd longed for her entire life.

There was that meddlesome raccoon, Rigby, and she knew that he would admit this, but he considered her a friend as well. He caught her glancing at her as he sat at the table awaiting his pizza, and he quickly stuck his tongue out and turned away. She chuckled under her breath and continued to take in what was around her.

There was Mordecai, the tall blue jay that liked video games and a wide variety of music. He was kind to her as well, much kinder than Rigby was by far. The blue jay felt he was being watched by the girl, and had he not feathers on his face, you could've seen him clearly blushing. He continued standing against the refrigerator, fiddling with his hands and refusing to look up from them.

Eileen was _out there_, for sure - she stood behind and stared at Rigby, and although it was in a rather creepy fashion, it was pretty cute. She was always looking at him longingly, a dampened glint in her eyes behind the glasses that she constantly readjusted. For some reason, Kairo knew that she was just buying the pizza for Rigby. Anyone could see that, of course.

Then there was the yeti named Skips, who by now probably knew everything about Kairo there was to know. She didn't necessarily like how that sounded though, because that also meant that everyone else that was _immortal _or whatever knew that as well. It filled her hybrid brain with questions that could very well be left unanswered forever; Questions such as, how did immortals become that way? They weren't vampires, were they? And how were they connected to the Portal? What was the Portal? Why did it choose to rescue her, of all people. Skips turned his head and smiled at her warmly. The questions were replaced with reassurance in an instant as Kairo smiled back, all except one: could he read minds?

Ignoring the question, she searched around some more. Pops wasn't in the room, she must have assumed she was up in his bedroom singing and playing with dolls or something. Yeah, he was sweet and all… but sometimes Kairo just thought he had a few screws loose. But that's what made him so lovable. Muscleman and Fives were out doing what Benson had told them to do, thank god. She didn't want to be around that green oompa-loompa after he called her short and managed to push her on her face both at the same time. It was most unpleasant, and she was thankful that Benson intervened.

Benson. There was one person (or, gumball machine, rather) that she couldn't have survived in this new world without. Sure, she thought to herself as she watched him scold Mordecai for forgetting to feed Kairo when they visited the girls, he had one hell of a temper at times. And at others, he was as sweet as Pops. It was sort of strange, the way he acted all angry and defensive, when really he was trying to express concern and wisdom. She sighed. Mordecai and Rigby were just a little to stupid to see that, she supposed, and giggled a bit at the thought. She couldn't have asked for a better place for the Portals to send her. She had friends, food, safety… _Now all we need, _she thought to herself, _is some zombies to kill together, like that one videogame. Then life would be perfecto._

"ZOMBIES!" Muscleman screeched much like a woman as he burst through the door, doused in perspiration -eww- with Fives following up not far behind.

_How convenient, _Kairo smiled slyly.

"What!?" Mordecai and Rigby asked simultaneously, drawing everyone's attention to the conversation being held in the center of the kitchen.

"Zombies, bro!" Muscleman repeated as he gasped for air. "The pizza delivery guys are zombies, and they're making their way down to the cemetery, probably to get some backup!"

Mordecai shook his head. "That's impossible, we got rid of that stupid old movie player as soon as movie night was over. How are they still alive?"

Rigby stood up on the table and scratched his head. "Maybe the zombies had other comrades dispersed throughout the city specifically to watch over certain sectors of the city in hopes of locating the ones who had revived their allies in the cemetery, so that they could all rendezvous and invade to turn us all into zombies!" he concluded with a finger in the air. Everyone around him just stared at him.

"Whoa." Kairo said out loud, breaking the awkward silence. Maybe Rigby was a lot smarter than the others took him for. Which was pretty scary, when you came to think of it.

"Okay, hold on just a sec!" Benson said, walking towards the now panicking group. "Someone better explain to me just how these zombies are connected to the park's movie night."

Mordecai sighed. "Well, you know that one movie player? Rigby broke it and it sent out a beam of-"

"Hey! I didn't break it!" Rigby intruded. "That was your fault!"

Mordecai pushed Rigby on the shoulder. "Don't try to pin this one on me, loser!"

"Too late!" the raccoon snarled viciously and jumped into him, causing the both of them to fall backward.

Benson sighed with a large frown written upon his face. "Do they do this _every day?_" Kairo asked.

"Only on work days," he grimaced as he grabbed the raccoon by the tail and yanked him off of his friend. "Would you guys stop fighting for _two seconds _so that we can get this zombie thing resolved!?" Benson shouted, setting down Rigby and helping the blue jay up.

Skips skipped forward. "We have to hurry; they're making their way to the house. Muscleman, Fives, get the provisions from the attic." Skips said with his naturally scratchy voice. The two nodded vigorously and headed up to the attic. "Ya hear that Fives?" Muscleman said as he made his way up the stairs. "We're gonna kick some zombie butt! WHOO!"

"ZOMBIEEEES!" Kairo exclaimed excitedly, jumping up on the table in a rambunctious manner and shaking her fists high in the air. "AHMYGAWD! I've never seen real life zombies before! C'mon! Let's go get 'em!" The hybrid jumped from the table and was just about to burst through the door before someone just barely managed to grab the back of her shirt.

"Not gonna happen, Kairo." Benson calmly replied, pulling her back and replacing the half eaten sandwich in her hands.

"Whaa-? Butbutbut-"

"No buts! You're in no condition to be fighting, much less zombies."

Her eyes went wide, fearing the worst for a second or two, only to remember that she had fainted from not eating. That's what he was talking about, not the wounds that had just begun to heal.

"Oh, so what if I'm a little weak? No biggie!"

"I said _no._" Benson said sternly.

"Aww come on Benson!" she said, eyeing the rest of the guys go out the door with various objects in their arms. "I promise I won't faint!"

"You can't control when you're gonna faint, smart one,"

"I will this time! Watch me!"

"What I'm gonna watch you do is sit your cat butt down back at the table and finish your sandwich. Stay here, I need to talk to Skips." And with that, Benson went out the front door.

"Hmmph!" Kairo huffed, slumping down into her chair and crossing her arms, before wincing and sitting back up. Well, there were zombies. The only problem was that she wouldn't be the one killing them.

Kairo looked around the room, and noticed the back door was unlocked, it was just beckoning her over. _Well, sitting around here ain't no fun, _Kairo thought, her smirk growing wider. She plucked a knife from one of the knife holders on the counter and burst through the door.

INSERT LINE

"So we'll need to barricade around the entire park as well as in front of the house. It'll keep them from attacking the city."

"Right," Benson agreed, walking back into the house. "Ya hear that, Kairo? You can help put up the barriers, but that's-" Benson stopped short as he walked into the empty kitchen. He noticed a number of things. One, the only thing sitting at the table was a half-eaten sandwich. Two, there was a toppled over knife holder on the counter. And the back door was wide open.

Both Skips and Benson said simultaneously the first words that escaped their mouths.

"Oh shit."

INSERT LINE

_Author's Note: I told you guys I wouldn't stop the story! Sorry for uploading so very (very, very, very) late, and sorry for it being so short. The next chapter's gonna be nothing but action and it'll be jampacked. That should hold you guys off for a little longer! ;D_


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